I'd say slightly worse, mainly because I see Nawaz Sharif as something of a loose cannon, especially towards India. Of course a lot of the focus is on the western tribal areas, India to the east could rapidly become an even bigger international crisis.
I don't really know enough about Zaradai to have a strong opinion on him at this point.
Per how this plays out with the militant factions, my take is that bringing them to the table strengthens the hand of the militants. Yes, crushing them was and is out of the question, so I favor bottling them up as best as can be done.
I really don't think you're going to be able to come to a peaceful reconciliation with them, becuase I don't think that's the end goal of the militants.

Long and short, my bigger concern at the moment is how this plays out with India, but I'm not terribly optimistic.

__________________
The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? - Psalm 27:1

Yeah- I guess how the new leadership relates to India (and how India receives them) are equally important questions.

I also agree about trying to contain the militants, because they can't be 'taken out' with out enflaming other militants and terror cells around the world- with potentially disastrous consequences. On the other hand, is just 'containing them' enough? Being allowed to basically have a protected sanctuary in the Tribal Areas is essentially allowing them to continue to sponsor and support terrorism elsewhere, is it not?

This is all still quite amazing to me how the Bush administration banged the war drum with Iraq for all that time, invaded, toppled Sadam's govt- basically opening up a huge, uncontainable civil war and sinking tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of lives into peril, as well as hundreds of billions of dollars, when all the while Pakistan, our supposed ally in the war on terror has really been the biggest state-sponsor (by default or otherwise) of terrorism- next to perhaps the former Taliban govt, or Iran.

That is what I still find to be dumbfounding about this whole situation...

It would certainly seem to indicate to me that the Bush administration either found value to maintaining their precarious hold on power by holding onto the al Qaeda-as-bogeyman threat while they plunder Iraq through war profiteering, OR they are really scared s**tless by those guys and the jihad that could break out if they were 'taken out' and distracted focus elsewhere militarily to avoid having to deal with the Pakistan situation (i.e. invasion of Tribal Areas, widescale bombing campaigns there, etc).

__________________
Peace,

John

My Librarything

MySpace

My E-Bay World
. . . .