It could end up being good for Pakistan, if it galvanizes the anti-Musharaff forces enough to depose him, or it could be bad, if he manages to hang onto power through massive repression.

The way I read it, Musharaff, through the ISI, has been building up the Muslim extremists as a method of keeping the modernists at bay.  He used one of his dupes to get rid of Bhutto, following Stalin's dictum, "No man, no problem," but it very well could be that his belief the Great Man theory of history has blinded him to the reality of a Great Moment.  Bhutto didn't create the secular movement in Pakistan, she only gave it a focus, and she gives it an even stronger focus dead, since she will no longer be able to disappoint it with human imperfection.

The Muslimists' dependence on ISI support shows that they aren't really very strong, so the secularists may be able to ignore them until they topple Musharaff.  Still, they will be players in the mix if only because they offer violence with plausible deniability, as in the case of this assassination.

So, the bones have been thrown, and we don't know how they've fallen yet.

His response to people question whether or not he was qualified enough to lead the US in a world where sensitive foreign policy problems like this are happening:

"If the answer for leading the country is someone that has a lot of foreign policy experience, we can just go down to the State Department and pick up any one of the tens of thousands of people who spent all their life in foreign policy," he said while campaigning in New Hampshire.

Instead, he said, what is needed is a chief executive with leadership and the ability to assemble "a great team of people to be able to guide and direct them to understand what decision has to be made."

Who the hell would be convinced by that? That's exactly what Bush said - does anyone want that again? Meh, I can't believe that he's the best the Republicans can come up with. It's a sad day.

Ce n'est pas une pipe. C'est une signature.

It's hardly a surprise that they're rioting in the streets, though one wishes people could find a more constructive outlet for their anger. This is terribly troubling for Pakistan's future. I wish I could say more but as much as we were all expecting this type of thing, it's sadly shocking to hear of it succeeding.

It is easy to buy small plaster models of what you think life is like.

Bhutto and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, faced corruption cases in Switzerland, Spain and Britain, as well as in Pakistan, and her personal probity in office was often questioned. Indeed, many say that Bhutto's chief reason to risk herself as she has in Pakistan was to restore her husband's reputation. Abdullah Riar, a former senator in the Pakistani Parliament and a former colleague of Ms. Bhutto's, says she told him of her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, that "Time will prove he is the Nelson Mandela of Pakistan." But it has also been said that Bhutto's reputation for acting imperiously and impulsively made her intensely polarising.

World leaders were predictably upset about her death. President Bush was "informed about the situation in Pakistan" and his spokesman commented "We condemn the acts of violence which took place today in Pakistan." British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said "I am deeply shocked by news of the latest attack in Rawalpindi which has claimed the life of Benazir Bhutto and killed at least 15 other people... [Bhutto] knew the risks of her return to campaign but was convinced that her country needed her."  French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, who knew Bhutto personally, "expressed vivid emotion following the attack" and strongly condemned "this horrible act", reaffirming "France's commitment to the stability of Pakistan and its democracy." India's Congress Party said "We must express our deep concern at anything that disrupts and disturbs the even keel of democratic governance in Pakistan." Iran's Foreign Ministry said "We hope the Pakistani government will identify and bring to justice those behind such a criminal act and restore tranquility to the country." Russia's Foreign Ministry seemed particularly incensed: "We strongly condemn this terrorist act, present our condolences to the family and friends of Benazir Bhutto and hope that Pakistani authorities will provide for national stability... [Pakistan's government] must do its best to ensure the maximum stability in the election period and prevent terrorist acts against Benazir Bhutto and other political leaders."

Even U.S. presidential candidates needed to chime in. Rudy Giuliani insisted assassins "must be brought to justice" notwithstanding that Bhutto's chief attacker blew himself up after shooting her. Hillary Clinton said she was "profoundly saddened and outraged... She returned to Pakistan to fight for democracy despite threats and previous attempts on her life, and now she has made the ultimate sacrifice. Her death is a tragedy for her country and a terrible reminder of the work that remains to bring peace, stability and hope to regions of the globe too often paralyzed by fear, hatred, and violence."

Farzana Shaikh, Pakistan analyst at the London-based Chatham House foreign policy institute, opined "It was Benazir Bhutto that posed the main threat to pro-Musharraf parties... Long-term it raises very, very serious questions about the stability of Pakistan."

When Chief Minister Narendra Modi won reelection to his third term in India's western Gujarat state, some claimed that his political success largely resulted from his economic successes. But Modi has long been India's most incendiary politician, and he can't even travel to US. Why? "Gujarat State is considered a test case for national politics because it is viewed as a laboratory for radical Hindu politics in contemporary India... Modi, a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party, is accused of sanctioning or at least taking no steps to stop Hindu mobs from massacring at least 1,000 of their Muslim neighbors in February 2002, after a mysterious fire engulfed a train carrying members of a Hindu nationalist organization, killing 59 people on board. Ten months later, voters in Gujarat returned Modi to power." And now Modi has been returned with just short of 2/3rds majority of seats in Gujarat's state legislature.

Muslim extremists may truly be minority of Pakistanis, but their proximity to India feeds anti-Muslim sentiment there. Muslim extremists like al-Qaeda may be tiny group within conventional Islam, but their activities have fed now-widespread anti-Muslim sentiment in US, UK, and much of Western world. Palestinians may feel justified in their actions against Israeli occupation, and they may be widely cheered and supported throughout Muslim world, yet their behaviour over last few decades has alienated most non-Muslims from them and from their cause. So many Muslims seem to think that Allah will intervene in their struggle, and so they can take on entire world without fear of ultimate defeat, but making enemies of almost every major country on Earth at same time cannot really lead them anywhere useful. If world's sole superpower, US, cannot take on whole world at once, Muslims cannot do it either. Yet their religion has been perverted to encourage many of them to live in fantasy world, imaging their embrace of death will give them absolute power even as their backward and tyrannical governments repel people who don't want to live in distant and dark past.

If Pakistan looked set to be taken over by Muslim extremists, even if US didn't act India almost certainly would. Do these people really want that? Do they believe themselves invulnerable from such attacks? Do they really want Holy War to destroy modern society as badly as American fundamentalist Christians seem to want that? If so, real answer to extremist threats lies not in confronting them militarily but to make it impossible for them to impact other countries outside their cultural borders. But that approach requires getting closer to countries like Russia and China, not pushing them into arms of extremists by judging them for not being Western enough.