A story in today’s New York Times Magazine reminds me that the Times is a huge operation, there are still some great writers there, and that real gems can still emerge from the mass of garbage. Barry Bearak has a terrific in-depth report on one of the undeclared members of the Axis of Evil: Pakistan Is … (Hat tip: Bala Ambati.)

To be honest, Pakistan frightens me. Not the being there, despite recent attacks on foreigners, despite what happened to Daniel Pearl. I have visited Pakistan a few dozen times since 1998, most recently for five weeks this fall. Almost always I’ve found the people warm and generous and protective. Rather, what greatly alarms me is Pakistan as a potential meltdown, a nuclear power with too many combustibles in the national mix.

I am hardly alone in my fears — and yet this nation rarely finds itself under the American magnifying glass. ”Pakistan is an incredibly important country, but I don’t think there’s an awareness of that in the United States,” Richard Haass told me. He had recently left the Bush administration as director of policy planning in the State Department and assumed the presidency of the Council on Foreign Relations. ”If you’d ask most people what are the biggest issues in the world, they’d say the Middle East, Iraq, North Korea, perhaps Afghanistan, a long list. But not a lot of people would say Pakistan.” He, too, has pondered the dangerous skein of possibilities. ”Sure to be a nightmare is a breakdown in order. They haven’t institutionalized succession in any meaningful way. At worst, you could have a loss of control over their nuclear weapons.”