On CNN, while they were waiting for Amanpour to deploy to Pakistan with her trademarked "sympathy face," they talked to their Pentagon reporter, who said that the Pentagon was minimally staffed this week, but as the flash came in, calls went out and lots of people were on their way back.

I remember my IR professor telling us that Pakistan was one assassination away from being an extremist Islamic state with nuclear weapons. Here's hoping this wasn't that assassination.

It's going to be interesting and frightening to see how the aftermath plays out; particularly if there's a general population demonstration, along the lines of the aftermath of the Rafik Hariri assassination in Lebanon in 2005. My own bet is not, because there is no outside threat (a la Syria in the Hariri case) to galvanize solidarity among the population, but we shall see.

Matt