The answer, surprisingly, is incumbent and New Delhi favorite Hamid Karzai.

On the surface, the incredible expansion of Indian influence in Afghanistan during Karzai's tenure seems to pose a threat to Pakistan's perceived interest. Since 2001 India has given Afghanistan $1.2 billion in development assistance for projects ranging from the construction of a new parliament building in Kabul to the education of Afghan bureaucrats in India. Moreover, Karzai has a long history of personal connections to India stretching back to his college days at Himachal Pradesh University.

Lest we forget, in 2008 Pakistani intelligence backed an attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul in a desperate attempt to impede India's growing influence in Kabul. Why would the Pakistani government refrain from interfering with Karzai's reelection bid this time around?

The answer is simple: The Zardari administration, in contrast to the Musharraf administration, values stability in Afghanistan over influence.  

"From a Pakistan perspective, an Afghanistan that returns to deep instability as it has in the past, specifically in the 1990s, would be a cause for concern for Pakistan because it would probably bring greater instability inside Pakistan," says Daniel Markey, a Pakistan expert at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Karzai--for Islamabad's money--is a better bet to bring stability to Afghanistan than the relatively unknown Abdullah Abdullah.

This article is written from the perspective of an important part of Pakistani society that despises both the Taliban and their sympathetic hosts in Pakistan. Liberals in Pakistan have come to terms with the fact that something is fundamentally wrong with the way the country is governed.  Money quote:

"The military in the past 60 years has been involved in three declared interstate wars resulting in two draws and one humiliating defeat. The military budget surpasses the health and education budgets combined. Our army heads have staged more coups than the armies of other South Asian countries. We should not kid ourselves into believing that the current military operation is under the strict control of the civilian administration. The military as the ultimate arbiter of what constitutes a threat to national security and how to deal with such threats is fraught with dangers. Supporting the military action against the Taliban is not the same as the military deciding when and how to deal with domestic dissent."

Click to Read More ----->