Well there are some fundamental fallacies in some of the analysis in the times piece.
For example what really made my laugh was this bit here
Well, America is Pakistan's biggest fracturer, and it's not just the drone strikes. So long as we continue our war on terror inside Pakistan, we deny the country the one thing that's kept it together all these years - Islam. We make the secular state our illogical goal, but once we're gone, Pakistan is free to reintegrate Islam back into the government more openly - as it should, says Claremont.
The problem is not having Islam as a faith to guide people or society, the problem is Pakistan's use of Islam as a cynical political tool to further its geopolitical interests. Moreover, the fracturing has been happening long before the US involvement in Pakistan post 9/11. And the primary cause has been not identifying themselves as south asian Muslims or the Indic Islamic identity. Afterall, the break up of Pakistan and Bangladesh happened long before 9/11 or the Afghan war.
What we are looking at with or without US involvement is Pakistan becoming more ideological than realistic. In other words, it will be more like Iran, ready to take on global norms and institutions at the drop of a hat rather than work with them.
Now from the American point of view, Pakistan being intact is very important. Not just in the short term to control terrorism. But also to act as a counterweight to potential great power rivals vis a vis China and India. As I have mentioned before China would want to do the same as well. If Pakistan is forced to have a detente with India then there is effectively no other power that can counterbalance India from the Persian Gulf to the Straits of Malacca.
One of the problems here is the intentional or unintentional understatement of the ability of India to connect with the Muslim countries in its neighborhood. Just because Pakistan is Muslim majority does not mean it will automatically have good relations with Muslim countries. Just as recently as in the 1990s, India along with Iran, Central Asian countries and even Turkey were supporting the Northern Alliance against the Pakistani, Saudi and to a brief extent US backed Taliban. If you look at what is coming out from the GCC countries in the past 10 years, the focus has very significantly shifted to looking India as a stability anchor.
What really depends now is how "ideological/irrational" vs "realistic" the Pakistani army leadership has become. If they are realistic, they will resolve or atleast put the Kashmir issue on deep freeze, do a massive clean of the "Jihadi" or more accurate Fasadi groups all over Pakistan and start improving relations with neighbors other than China.
