Dan Rather

Suppose you were to hear about a country where car bombs are becoming ever more common, where terrorists operate, recruit and train with impunity. A country at risk of plunging into civil war, where just this past week a suicide bomber killed more than a dozen people in the capital. A country that is a central front in the war on terrorism.

You might think you were hearing about Iraq. But the country in question is, in fact, Pakistan. It's a place where several long-simmering story lines have seemed to boil over in recent days.

Islamabad's Lal Masjid (Red Mosque), raided on July 10 by Pakistan government forces after a protracted standoff with Islamic militants, is the immediate cause for much of the unrest now happening inside the country. It also symbolises nearly perfectly the complex set of forces threatening to bring about the fall of Gen. Pervez Musharraf and possibly tear the country apart.

Shared purpose

The Red Mosque and the offices of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence stand not far from one another in the capital city, a geographical proximity that reflects a shared purpose going back decades. During the 1980s, the Red Mosque was a central incubator of the state-sponsored jihad movement that (with U.S. help) fought the Soviets in Afghanistan and later became the building blocks of the Taliban. Long a place of worship for Pakistan's governmental movers and shakers, the Red Mosque represented the nexus of secular strategies and religious fervour.

After 9/11, Gen. Musharraf severed the official aspects of the relationship between the ISI and the brand of radical Islam typified by the Taliban. In actuality, though, Musharraf has walked a tightrope ever since - between appeasing the United States on one side and, on the other, radical Islamic forces within his own country, government and security forces.

Musharraf's raid on the Red Mosque, which resulted in the death of scores of militants within the complex, marked his reluctant jump from that tightrope. The general, who seized power in a military coup in 1999, now finds himself in something close to open war with several key Islamist factions within his country.

Most notable among these are the Taliban and their tribal allies in Pakistan's semi-autonomous regions bordering Afghanistan, where a truce with the central government now appears to be over. For the U.S. government, which never trusted the truce, this is a welcome development, particularly in the wake of last week's National Intelligence Estimate describing al-Qaida's ability to plan and train for fresh attacks in these regions. Now, the thinking in Washington goes, Pakistani troops and U.S. special forces might once again have a chance to engage the Taliban and al-Qaida where they live.

Bad timing

But for Musharraf, who has already lost more than 100 of his soldiers in these lawless regions since the raid on the Red Mosque, the crumbling of the truce and the renewed pressure from Washington could not come at a worse time. Disaffection with his rule is deepening among Pakistan's middle class over his controversial firing of Pakistan's chief justice, and the rising violence in Islamabad must be especially alarming for a ruler who has already survived multiple assassination attempts.

The people who really did attack us on 9/11, al-Qaida and the Taliban, are resurgent in Pakistan's mountains, and the dictator we backed to fight them is on the defensive. Many experienced observers predict that his days are numbered. Pakistan also, lest we forget, possesses nuclear weapons.

Pakistan is not Iraq, but it seems as likely as any other nation to be a future spot of serious trouble, and even a potential destination point for U.S. troops.