And continued military rule makes the jihadis seem like freedom fighters.
So the problem is that we'd like to have democracy in Pakistan to keep the jihadis from gaining support. In time, a majority of Pakistanis might think a mullah government is better than military dictatorship.
Yet we need Pakistan's help as is to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan, so we can't pressure Pakistan for democracy too much for fear we'd lose the help in Afghanistan.
And as the Pakistani generals placate their jihadis by looking the other way as much as possible while the jihadis roam the border areas and fight in Afghanistan, we react by pressuring Pakistan to crack down on the jihadis.
Yet we have time to solve this problem. The jihadi-sympathetic Pakistanis are a minority still:
For some in the West, an exit — especially a violent one — for the military strongman conjures up a scenario of Pakistan and its nuclear weapons falling into militant hands.
But for the moment, moderate, pro-Western forces appear far stronger than radical Islamists, and would likely emerge victorious from the turmoil that could follow the president's removal.
Islamist parties have never scored higher than 12 percent in a general election. And while there are real concerns that the government has lost control of territory near the Afghan border, there is no sign that senior military commanders sympathize with the extremists there, even though Pakistan once supported the Taliban.
I think Strategypage wrote that the jihadi-sympathetic (to some degree) are at 30%, the military clique is at 10% and the democrats are 60%.
We have room to push Pakistan more for democracy right now with some confidence that jihadis won't seize the government. But the longer the military runs things, the more the jihadis will gain support.
Certainly, overthrowing the Iranian mullahs would restore freedom of action in regard to Pakistan.
