Pakistan has been getting more than its share of headlines lately. There’s the case of Mukhtaran Bibi, gang-raped three years ago, whose attackers were released from jail and her passport confiscated to keep her from traveling to the United States. The result: an international outcry and new attention to Pakistan’s human rights abuses.

Meanwhile, Afghanistan is accusing Pakistan of harboring Taliban fighters. U.S. intelligence officials have hinted that Pakistan is a ‘weak link’ in the hunt for Osama bin Laden. There is also evidence that jihadist training camps there are flourishing.

Still, President Bush has praised Pakistan’s President, Pervez Musharraf, hailing him as a hero for cooperating in the war on terror. And Musharraf has pledged his support in a potentially explosive part of the world, where the U.S. has a huge stake in maintaining stability.

Hear a discussion on the delicate strategic relationship between the U.S. and Pakistan.

Guests:

Ahmed Rashid, journalist and commentator based in Lahore, Pakistan

Nicholas Kristof, Op-Ed columnist, The New York Times

Husain Haqqani, visiting scholar, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and author, “Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military”

Walter Anderson, associate director, South Asia studies, the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced Interational Studies, Johns Hopkins University.