The bul­lets and bombs have final­ly found their mark. It is no sur­prise to learn of yet anoth­er assas­i­na­tion attempt against Pak­istani oppo­si­tion leader Benazir Bhut­to. Details are still sketchy and con­flict­ing but the only thing we real­ly need to know is that this attempt was suc­cess­ful and that Bhut­to is dead less than two weeks before Par­lia­men­tary elec­tions that might well have brought her into pow­er for the third time.

Pak­istan is a coun­try who’s top gov­ern­ment sci­en­tist export­ed atom­ic bomb-making across the world for decades. It still hosts Osama bin Laden. Afghanistan’s Tal­iban are still more-or-less head­quar­tered in its West­ern provinces. The stand­off with India has spawned war after war over the decade, now nuclear-enabled should either coun­try get so embold­ened. Bil­lions of dol­lars of Unit­ed States mon­ey has left Wash­ing­ton for Islam­abad since 9/11 and a pop­u­lar politi­cian can’t even cam­paign there with­out dead­ly assas­si­na­tion attempts. Pak­istan is one of the world’s hot spots, a nexus of ter­ror­ism, nuclear pro­lif­er­a­tion, reli­gious extrem­ism. It is a very sad day today indeed.