The latest reports indicate the ceasefire at Hangu in the Northern areas, announced by the government spokesmen that an agreement has been arrived at and would be implemented immediately. All hostilities were to cease and the army would be withdrawn to the barracks. Several questions are being discussed on all the talk shows. Does the ceasefire indicate that the deadline of five days to resign from the government of NWFP given by Baitullah Mehsud stands, or has the deadline been extended like our governmental curfews till normalcy has been restored? Have the Taliban affiliates laid down their weapons? Do they now accept the writ of the NWFP government and that of Islamabad? If the answer to anyone of these question is in the negative, then the State of Pakistan is under serious threat, for the sovereignty of Pakistan stands challenged, and these people cannot exist alongside Pakistan. This must be explained to us by the government with all the details, for if Baitullah has been accommodated then the repercussions will be harsh, and will affect the entire Northern area, and the other provinces. Who blinked? There are different stories. Pakistan today is facing a united opposition from the NATO forces in Afghanistan and the numbers may be uneven, but the firepower arrayed against us is formidable, and cannot possibly be absorbed. We may face a situation where under the Hot Pursuit policy the NATO Predators would follow as far as they would need, to destroy the Miscreants a truly frightening scenario. The newly elected governments already face destabilisation by the detractors of democracy not that the last eight years were of a puppet regime working under a Military Supervisor. This last eight years has brought about some disgraceful mismanagement at a huge cost to our economy. The people are at their most miserable, with flour lines and petrol pumps selling petrol at prohibitive prices. The Transport strikes could lead to civil disobedience (already scheduled) by the lawyers for August 15. In this witches cauldron we have Baitullah and his band of not so merry men eyeballing the NATO forces escalating the skirmishes to an unknown level, but with predictably dire results for us. If this is indeed the ground reality and the immediate future, then, we should negotiate a joint command with the NATO forces. For, in the end this will happen. If there is to be a constant running Guerrilla on our turf, then before we are turned into an impoverished Afghanistan we should expel from our midst those elements that are pushing us in this direction. The State of Pakistan is in jeopardy and has been placed there courtesy General Zia and his heirs, it is time to remove them. The enforcement in the Northern areas is complete, and the writ of the State is under siege. The army already knows their whereabouts, and they should be exposed. The various parties in their chase for power used the agencies to "assist" the Islamic parties from a real 4 percent to over 1.8 percent of the vote and with it two provinces " NWFP and Balochistan. These two provinces delivered the southern flank of Afghanistan to the Taliban. Now the Taliban, well-established have decided that they could bring the rest of Afghanistan under their control. A difficult but not impossible task for them. Given their laws and their brutal implementation. With the success of the ANP and the PPP one hopes that these two parties who had a secular legacy would now prevail open the Islamic part in numbers if not battle from their founders. However the events of the last month have shown that the Baitullah Party has some strong supporters in Islamabad. It is also obvious that Chaudhry Shujaat and Mushahid Husain are getting much pleasure at the discomfort being caused to Gilani's government. If one considers the future, with a NATO victory, we would have to cleanse only those madressahs that are promoting un-Islamic thoughts and teachings. A NATO defeat is unthinkable with unimaginable consequences. The writer is a political analyst