Pakistan a key ally in the War On Terror?

Well to be accurate, Pakistan has the potential to be a key ally in the war on terrorism. However, under the new Parliament and Prime Minister there, they have taken significant action to reduce the actual effective measures against terrorism. It's difficult to say why they are called a key ally now, but I can give five reasons why they should be a key ally.

1) They face a growing domestic threat of an insurgency that is linked to Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. It would be in their best interest to not legitimize the Taliban as the talks approved by Gilani have few if not any repercussions should the Taliban breach these peace deals.

2) The intentions of the Taliban fighters have been made clear and the Pakistani government has chickened out of taking action against any real criminals in the region. Remember how angry people were when Benazir Bhutto was shot dead in public and everyone pointed the finger at Musharraf? What about that guy Baitullah Mehsud who developed the plot?
In April a Pakistani court issued warrants for Mehsud's arrest, telling the Northwest Province Frontier Police until April 25 to arrest him. Where is he now? Five days after the warrants being issued, the government reached a peace accord with the Mehsuds. This agreement pulled all the Pakistani militant troops out and replaced it with their even more corrupt Frontier Corpsmen-the same guys that we killed in that "border clash" that Pakistan insists was friendly fire and our fault, even though several FC members have been arrested in the past for attacks on coalition forces.

3) It should be in Pakistan's best interest to promote stability in the region. They have the possibility to receive great partnerships with Afghanistan should they actively pursue stabilizing the Karzai admin. However, the idea of a secular govt. is one that is growing throughout the country, Musharraf has been ineffective in winning the minds of people that the Taliban are hardly secular.

4) Pakistan's autonomous regions are host to some of the most advanced terrorism training in the region. Any of the negotiations that they hold are not putting an end to these camps, it's only promising that they do not train for any "anti-state" activities inside Pakistan. Also, they are not establishing control over the areas, only allowing them to continue with the government's ineffectiveness.

5) Pakistan is a concern due to its nuclear program. AQ Khan (the godfather of the Pakistan nuke program) was already arrested but pardoned by Musharraf (one of his biggest mistakes) and he is only serving house arrest-which is a very loose term in the region. They know he shared information with Libya, North Korea, and several other countries. This coordination is a very, very dangerous threat to the region. Al-Qaeda has expressed an interest in using nuclear weapons, and it would only take one Pakistani weapon set off in India for a possible nuclear outbreak.

All of that said, Pakistan should be a real key ally. Instead, it has taken the choice to become a relatively lax enforcer of any terrorism laws and is not seeking to change its status at any time under its new govt. If there is anything that Karzai should do, it is to send troops into the autonomous regions (like Turkey and the PKK in Iraq), but Afghanistan does not have the proper troop amount yet to be able to face a heavy resistance there and maintain stability in its own country, thanks to the ineffective policies against the opium trade there, but that's another story.