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I wonder to what degree did we arising from our delutional policy encourage this woman to enter once again the nation driven by emotion rather than logic . What possible miracle did we expect from a people held captive by their passions. They are prisoners of the seventh century and their culture provides no avenue of escape.

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Greetings Ms. Estrich. May I begin by offering that your writing skills have never been better showcased than by this column, from what I have seen. The subject of your piece is evident from the start, but you do not blurt out who you have encountered, and the whole effect is very touching. On occasion, painting with pastels seems to yield the best result. Secondly, back in 1988, a year you surely remember very well, I for one would gladly have sent your adversary G.H.W. Bush to the Court of St. James in trade for Margaret Thatcher, a strong woman who had well proven her leadership abilities and could more ably have handled the most prominent CEO challenge in the Western world than any of the announced candidates. However, it is evident that her intellectual and mental makeup vastly differs from that of Mrs. Clinton, which may explain much of the resistance to Mrs. Clinton's candidacy that you encountered on the road show for your book. Finally, Ms. Bhutto's assassination would seem to mark a major step towards the abyss of total civil war for Pakistan. Mr. Musharraf, Mr. Sharif, and Ms. Bhutto each represented a substantial non-Islamist constituency in their country, though none without a greater or lesser degree of taint from it. In a sincere grand coalition to deal with the emergency of the Islamist virus that is securely based in the Northwest Frontier Province (north and south Waziristan, etc) and with considerable influence beyond, they might well have prevailed without mass civil strife. That Mr. Musharraf's constituency included some who may well have conspired in Ms. Bhutto's assassination means that keeping such a tripartite coalition together to face the Islamist emergency may well have become impossible. Recall if you like the assassination of the Duke of Orleans in 1407, which with pay-back sundered French unity for a generation in the face of a marauding English invasion. The foreign-policy challenge in Pakistan for Ms. Rice and colleagues may be about as solvable as George Marshall's was in China after WW2. Again, 2008 seems to begin auspiciously for your writing career.