Pakistan today is clearly both part of the problem and the solution to the threat of terrorism facing the United States. Pakistan's support of terrorist groups is troublesome because even Islamabad cannot be certain that its control over the extremist forces it has unleashed will be robust in perpetuity. Pakistan has accumulated a complex set of strategic, economic, political, and societal problems throughout its 50 years of troubled statehood that are not only individually challenging but also mutually and viciously reinforcing. | 
