Is the West ready to get tough on Pakistan?

Is the next war more likely to be Pakistan than Iran? It looks more and more like that each day, especially as Barack Obama makes snarling at Pakistan the biggest plank of his foreign policy. Obama was at it again today saying that al-Qaeda and the Taliban “have got safe havens there (in the Pakistani tribal areas) that US troops can’t follow – that’s a huge problem. We’re going to need more troops in Afghanistan, but we’re also going to need more effective co-operation from the Pakistani government in rooting out these safe havens.”

As I say in my cover piece of the current magazine, this has the potential to become the perfect storm. Pakistan has a tripartite government (political administration, army and intelligence service). The Bush Administration has been at sixes and sevens with Musharaff, and inclined to take his promises at face value.