Meanwhile, Back in Pakistan …

AP photo: Supporters of Pakistani religious party Jamat-e-Islami chant slogans behind a banner reading, “Hang the American killer of innocents” in Islamabad, Pakistan.

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In 2007, Pakistan possessed between 30 to 60 nukes. Now, according to reports, it has doubled its stockpile, to “more than one hundred deployed weapons.”

Funny how that comes out right now, just as the under-played story of the year flares, barely noticed against Egyptian pyrotechnics.

Fox reports:

The [Pakistani nuke] report came as hard-line Islamic leaders rallied at least 15,000 people against an American official arrested in the shooting deaths of two Pakistanis and warned the government not to cave in to U.S. pressure to release the man.

The protest in the eastern city of Lahore, where the shootings took place, came as the U.S. Embassy once again insisted that the American has diplomatic immunity and was being detained illegally by Pakistan.

But Pakistan has refused to budge, saying the matter must be decided by the courts.

The spat has revealed the fragility of a relationship Washington believes is crucial for success in Afghanistan and against al-Qaida.

Not “fragility.” Lunacy. It’s a special kind of lunacy, arising from a self-willed blindness to simple, simple facts about Islam — its laws and its cultures — that makes such strategic alliances untenable and self-destructive to the non-Islamic West. As far as great power plays go, and despite the odd if admirable martyr of conscience, Pakistan is more reliably one of the “them” than it is reliably one of “us.” More to the point, it takes its place on the “Axis of Jihad” with Saudi Arabia and Iran (and soon, likely, Egypt).

Large protests by hard-line Islamic groups, which have significant influence in Pakistan, could make it even more difficult for the government to free the American.“We warn the government and administration that … if they help the arrested American illegally, then this crowd will surround the U.S. Embassy and presidential palace in Islamabad,” Hafiz Hussain Ahmed, a senior official in the Jamiat Ulema Islam party, said during Sunday’s rally.

Now what, Poindexters?

.The U.S. has said the American, who has not been named, acted in self-defense when he shot two armed men who approached his car in Lahore on Thursday. But many questions have been left unanswered, including exactly what the American did at the U.S. Embassy and why he was carrying a gun. The lack of clarity has fueled media speculation he may have been a CIA agent or security contractor, as well as questions over whether he qualified for diplomatic immunity.

Poor fellow.