THE BORDER REGIONS.

Alex at Yorkshire Ranter on the prospect of Pakistani refugees moving into Afghanistan:

What these people are fleeing is the Pakistani government's campaign, egged on by the US, against their warlords up in places like Swat; the government is now boasting openly that it's going to eliminate one of them they've decided is behind the killing. There is no reason to believe this is true; there is every reason, though, if you live up there, to expect all kinds of horrible trouble. Air raids. Artillery. Crazy foreigners whose God wants you for a guidance package. Bastard Punjabi soldiers wanting to search your house. Crazy foreigners making people disappear in their special aeroplanes. Who wouldn't leave?

I wish that we in America still used the Middle English term "aeroplane." But I digress; the point is that Pakistan probably isn't on the verge of a civil war, but the border regions are still going to catch it on the chin, whether or not they bear any responsibility for the assassination. In this region, as in neighboring regions of Afghanistan, it's not quite right to speak in terms of the disintegration of state power, since the state had such tenuous control in the first place.