This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Thursday, February 21st, 2008. I'm Caleb Brown.

With elections in Pakistan now in the books, how does U.S. influence in that area stand up?

And how will the nuclear threat change?

Malu Innocent is a foreign policy analyst at the Cato Institute.

The elections and what they mean for the United States are similar questions but different

questions because what's going to

happen in Pakistan now is most likely the PPP and the PMLN led by No was Sharif will

enter into some sort of coalition government more than likely because most of Musharraf's political allies were defeated in the election.

However, although that allows for some sort of some semblance of political stability, you know, for the government, really what matters is what the military

will do now for U.S. interests within the region, especially given the Islamist insurgency

on the Western border.

And right now, initially, there's reason to be optimistic.

General Ashva Cayani, the commander-in-chief of the Army, which has traditionally been the most powerful

seat within Pakistan.

His policy agenda is very much similar to that in Musharraf and the Bush administration.

They are interested in implementing more counterinsurgency style approach that General Prostreius isn't just tuning in Iraq and that consists of trying

to peel away a lot of the Taliban and Al Qaeda support that they get from the Pashtun tribes

in the tribal areas, the federally

administrative tribal areas, in the areas

adjacent to that, below Chistan and Northwest

Frontier Province.

And really what's important about the counterinsurgency

...