While Christmas passed peacefully in the United States there was a major terror attack that – if it had been successful – could have had earthshaking implications. A pair of pick-up trucks loaded with explosives rammed a motorcade carrying Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf. He escaped unharmed, but it was the second attempt on his live in the last two weeks. The previous attempt, on December 14, occurred 500 yards away when a remote-controlled bomb was detonated on a bridge less than a minute after Musharraf’s motorcade passed by.

On the macro-scale these attacks are frightening because Pakistan has nuclear weapons and a very strong Islamist movement. It is all too plausible that Islamists could seize complete control in the wake of a successful assassination or at least that an intimidated post-Musharraf government would be even less helpful in fighting terrorism.

On the micro-scale, the town where the attacks occurred, Rawalpindi, is the headquarters of Pakistan’s army. If the Pakistani security forces cannot secure Rawalpindi, their ability to secure anyplace is in serious doubt and this is the crux of the problem with Pakistan. It is unclear who really has control. Vast parts, particularly along the Afghan border, are not really controlled by the government and since the fall of the Taliban these regions have become the new base of al-Qaeda.

More frightening, this lack of control extends to institutions of the government. On the one hand, Pakistan has cooperated with the United States in fighting the Taliban and tracking down al-Qaeda, on the other Pakistan is effectively a rogue state. A. Q. Khan, the “father of the Pakistani bomb” is believed to have transferred nuclear technology to North Korea and Iran. This was almost certainly done in cooperation with Islamist elements within the government. Pakistan’s intelligence agency, Interservices Intelligence (ISI) is also rife with Islamists. ISI, with American support, supported the Afghan resistance to the Soviets in the 1980s – including the groups that became al-Qaeda and the Taliban. When the Soviets retreated, the ISI transferred many of the jihadists to another front – the Kashmir where Pakistan has a long-running dispute with India. Islamist terrorists brought a new level of bloodshed to the fighting in Kashmir. Used as proxies by the ISI, various terrorist groups have operated in Kashmir, including Jaish-e-Mohammed, Lashkar-e-Toiba, and Harakat-al-Mujahedin. Frequently, when one of these groups acquires too much notoriety, it is reorganized and its key personnel are transferred to other Kashmiri terrorist groups. The latest incarnation is Lashkar-e-Omar (named either for Taliban leader Mullah Omar or Ahmed Said Sheikh Omar – the murderer of Daniel Pearl.)

The terrorist violence in Kashmir has spilled out into both India and Pakistan, including terror attacks in India’s capital New Delhi that have brought Pakistan and India (both nuclear powers) to the brink of war. Pakistan also suffers terribly from terrorist violence. Foreigners and Christians have been murdered in terror attacks since 9/11. There is also large-scale violence between the Sunnis and Shia, which has resulted in hundreds of the deaths in the last decade.

In short, Pakistan is a nuclear-armed basket case. While there is also a strong secular current in Pakistan, imperfectly represented by Musharraf, the assassination attempts in the heart of the nation’s leading institution show that their control over Pakistan is a slender reed. An Islamist Pakistan would be a nuclear-armed Taliban and an international nightmare. It may also become a reality.