Wampum

My guess: exile, followed by Taliban-type takeover by democratic vote followed by bunch of idiots doing what bunch of idiots naturally do with ~40 nuclear weapons.

Not mine. Absent Musharaff, the political parties would come up with something workable, pragmantic and little-m "musslim". The notion that its Mushy or the Talib simply serves to make Mushy a little more attractive. The inventory remains a military asset, not available to Talibs or to the political class either, and targeted only at India.

EBW,

The thing is, the Taliban/ Al Qaeda folks de facto run chunks of Pakistan already. Ultra-conservative reactionaries who at the very least sympathize with the Taliban are the ones pushing the street riots, bombings, etc.

And the military has a significant number of them in place already.

Musharif goes, either about half of those nukes get aimed (or fired) at Israel (which has its own nukes) or they get fired at India. India's not exactly on the Taliban's "Nations we like" list.

I don't confuse the partial incorporation of the Gwadar (Omani up until 1956) region, or Balouchistan more generally, and the Waziristans, or restated, the autonomy of each, historically w.r.t. the Punjabi state, and the Taliban.

Basically, you are suggesting that the non-Punjabi (or marginalized Punjabis) are capable of controlling the Pakistani intelligence and military, rather than the other way around.

Further, you're overlooking the domestic Pakistani political forces, some of whom want some degree of "danger" to maintain or increase their factions status in the run-up to an election that has been anticipated for most of the decade.

Anyway, thanks for reading Wampum and some of the series Is Pakistan? Weapons inventories are a concern we share.