Most Dangerous Trouble Spot In The World Update

I'd like to know what triggered this, whether the White House simply demanded it or the Pakistani government realized the threat or what.

Pakistan declared war on its homegrown Islamic extremists Thursday in a dramatic move that could trigger a wider conflagration.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, in a late-night televised address to the nation, said Pakistan would launch a full-scale offensive against Pakistani Taliban guerrillas who've seized control of the vast Swat valley, which is about 100 miles north of the capital.

Pakistan will no longer "bow our heads before the terrorists," Gilani said in an 11 p.m. address as he called on citizens to rally behind the armed forces. He said that the government had tried peaceful negotiation with Taliban entrenched in the Swat valley, but the strategy hadn't worked.

Pakistan had "reached a stage where the government believes that decisive steps have to be taken," he said, and the army's job now was to "eliminate the militants and the terrorists."

This is very strange and I wouldn't take it at surface value. Especially because it appears to be a snap decision. After all, the country was clearly unprepared for the civilian exodus from Swat, suggesting that they never planned for it entirely.

Obviously the visit of Asif Ali Zardari to Washington could have sparked this. However, according to McClatchy some officials in DC still haven't seen army regiments pulled off of the border with India - so far just the paramilitary forces are leading the effort. I think the push from the Administration has been to forsake the illusion of a security need on the Indian border and put those troops into the fight. But for Pakistan to do that would unwind 60 years of history - they have always considered that the main threat. It's more likely that public opinion allowed Pakistan to move at this time.

The government's call to arms only seemed possible because of a seismic shift in public opinion against the militants, which only took place in the past few weeks after a deal with the Taliban in Swat went badly sour.

"After a long time, the people see a ray of hope," said analyst Khadim Hussain, of the Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy, an independent research organization in Islamabad. "For the first time, the majority of the population, the people in the conflict zone, and the military, are thinking along the same lines."

Nawaz Sharif just spoke out against the Taliban occupation of Swat, giving the blessing for this offensive.

If the public opinion really has moved, that would really change the dynamic in Pakistan. However, a large humanitarian crisis numbering in the hundreds of thousands seems to be the consequence of this as well. Juan Cole has more.

Nice Government You've Got There, Be A Shame If Something Happened To It

The Pakistani Army, rousted from their slumber and their preoccupation with India, have finally started moving against the internal threat of the Taliban, with battles continuing to rage. One would think this represents a turning of the corner in Pakistan, a show that the government can be responsive to pressure. Nevertheless, the US has cast about for new options, which is interesting, given that Pakistan is a sovereign nation.

As American confidence in the Pakistani government wanes, the Obama administration is reaching out more directly than before to Nawaz Sharif, the chief rival of Asif Ali Zardari, the Pakistani president, administration officials said Friday.

American officials have long held Mr. Sharif at arm’s length because of his close ties to Islamists in Pakistan, but some Obama administration officials now say those ties could be useful in helping Mr. Zardari’s government to confront the stiffening challenge by Taliban insurgents.

The move reflects the heightened concern in the Obama administration about the survivability of the Zardari government. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the head of the United States Central Command, has said in private meetings in Washington that Pakistan’s government is increasingly vulnerable, according to administration officials.

It's an improvement to consider the views of people who may have the support of the local population, and not reject them because "we don't negotiate with terrorists" or whatever. But Pakistan does have a right to self-determination, last I checked. I agree with the President that the country will not collapse but the government is fragile, and the situation bears watching. If Zardari and Sharif can work together, brokered perhaps by American influence, all to the good. What does seem dangerous to me is the wishful thinking in certain segments, particularly from Petraeus and leaders in the Pentagon, of a military coup and another dictatorship to further radicalize the Pakistani people.

It would be naive to think that the Pakistani military, which ruled Pakistan for the past ten years until Pervez Musharraf resigned from the Army in November 2007 and formally relinquished power last August, doesn’t believe it could do a better job of governing than Asif Ali Zardari. And it would also be naive to think that the Obama administration is closed off to the prospect, whatever it might say about democracy. Andrew Exum wonders why the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has a “weird man crush” on Kayani. He might merely be prepared to bet on what he considers the stronger horse — not a strong horse, as the Pakistani army has been repeatedly beaten by the Pakistani Taliban and its allies, but a stronger one. It might also explain why Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy objects to making aid to Pakistan receivable to “civilian authorities of a government of Pakistan constituted through a free and fair election,” among other provisions of conditionalized funding.

The American frustration with the Zardari government stems from the inability of the military, to this point, to deal with Taliban attacks in the tribal areas. I think Matt Yglesias has a point - that could be a function of the military underperforming so that the government looks bad, with an eye toward returning the military to power in the government to make everything all better. But isn't this the military's problem, to begin with? And specifically, the relationship between the military and the Taliban fighters?

Sharif, at this point clearly has more popularity inside Pakistan. His influence could offer greater support to the fight against militants. And throwing money down a hole toward a leader with a history of corruption won't solve the problem. But our ability to manage that political conflict is limited. And our credibility should we actually return the military to power would be even lower in Pakistan that it currently is, if that's possible.

Charles Lemos has more.

Most Dangerous Trouble Spot In The World Update

If I were the Obama Administration I'd be nervous about Pakistan myself.

The Obama administration reacted with increasing alarm yesterday to ongoing Taliban advances in Pakistan, warning the Pakistani government that failure to take action against the extremists could endanger its partnership with the United States as well as American strategy in neighboring Afghanistan.

"The news over the past several days is very disturbing," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said, adding that the administration "is extremely concerned" and that the issue was taking "a lot" of President Obama's time.

Obama held a White House meeting on the subject with Vice President Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Richard C. Holbrooke, the administration's special representative to the region, officials said, and also brought it up in a separate session with congressional leaders. Holbrooke spoke by telephone to Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and with Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi.

Secretary of State Clinton publicly expressed her frustration during Congressional testimony, accusing the Pakistani government of "basically abdicating to the Taliban and to the extremists.” I think this is an overly simplistic view of the situation. Prime Minister Zardari has no legitimacy inside the country due to the sparring with Nawaz Sharif and his initial refusal to reinstate the Supreme Court Justice. His approval ratings are in the low double digits, and Sharif is at around 83%. Zardari is less concerned with following the dictates of the Administration with respect to the Taliban than saving his own government from ruin. Obviously the White House has money to dangle, but Congress has yet to appropriate it. The Administration wanted to hold a 2-day summit with Zardari and Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, but Zardari is concerned that, if he leaves the country, he won't be Prime Minister when he returns - perhaps because of a military coup.

Pakistan will not fall to Islamists or extremists anytime soon - that's alarmist rhetoric. It is unstable, however, without a handle on much of the countryside, and that spells danger for a good bit of the region. The military has moved into the area near Islamabad that has been taken over by Taliban forces, so perhaps they've gotten the message. But they cannot snap their fingers and achieve legitimacy over all the people.

Meanwhile, there was a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing about Afghanistan yesterday, and it almost felt like an afterthought. Might as well change that nickname to "Pak-Af."

Where Is The End In Afghanistan?

The New York Times has a tick-tock on the internal debate leading to the final Afghanistan strategy, and the story presumes a schism between Joe Biden and James Steinberg, arguing for a more limited role for US forces, and Richard Holbrooke and Hillary Clinton, arguing for a more expansive one.

All of the president’s advisers agreed that the primary goal in the region should be narrow — taking aim at Al Qaeda, as opposed to the vast attempt at nation-building the Bush administration had sought in Iraq. The question was how to get there.

The commanders in the field wanted a firmer and long-term commitment of more combat troops beyond the 17,000 that Mr. Obama had already promised to send, and a pledge that billions of dollars would be found to significantly expand the number of Afghan security forces.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, pressed for an additional 4,000 troops to be sent to Afghanistan — but only to serve as trainers. They tempered the commanders’ request and agreed to put off any decision to order more combat troops to Afghanistan until the end of this year, when the strategy’s progress could be assessed.

During these discussions, Mr. Biden was the voice of caution, reminding the group members that they would have to sell their plans to a skeptical Congress.

I think this depends on your meaning of the word "limited." Everyone in the room agreed with Biden about narrowing the focus to defeating Al Qaeda and dismantling their safe havens. But surely that is not a limited goal. And the lack of a defined exit strategy doesn't exactly presume some limited commitment. Under the terms of this plan, we will be in Afghanistan and Pakistan for a long time, and we will find it harder to extricate ourselves, as such an exit is based on a very shaky Afghan security force and a buy-in from a Pakistani government that apparently cannot be trusted.

Some in the administration are skeptical that the Pakistanis will meet their commitments under the new strategy. “You have people there who just lie to our face, like Zardari, who just lies to us,” said one official who requested anonymity, referring to the Pakistani president. “Honestly, I don’t believe there’s a war going on in the tribal areas. The Pakistanis tell us that, but they’re just baldfaced lies.” The official believes that U.S. diplomats in Pakistan accept Pakistani claims of maximal warfighting efforts at face value: “They don’t speak Urdu, they don’t speak Pashto, and they eat it all up.”

Yikes.

For what it's worth, both Zardari and Afghan President Hamid Karzai praised the new plan, in particular the emphasis on increased foreign aid and economic development and the inclusion of a regional diplomatic component, with the notable addition of Iran at the negotiating table. Those actually are the positive signs of this plan, in my view. But I agree with Publius that a lot of this makes me a little queasy.

You're all familiar with the phrase "canary in the coal mine." The idea was that miners would bring canaries down into the mines as warning signals. When the air became toxic, the canaries would be affected first -- thus warning the miners of imminent danger.

With respect to the Afghanistan policy, the problem isn't that the "signaling" canaries are dropping dead. The problem is that they're too happy -- they're chirping with excessive mirth. Specifically, when Max Boot, Robert Kagan, Bill Kristol, and the Post editorial board are all excited about the policy.... well, it might be time to get out of the mine [...]

This strategy seems extremely susceptible to morphing into an open-ended, long-term commitment without clear objectives. Frankly, I didn't see any exit strategy yesterday. I saw no verifiable metrics for determining whether we're achieving our objectives (and on that -- is the objective to disrupt al Qaeda, or to stabilize the government?). I've heard promises of benchmarks -- but nothing yet. And even assuming concrete benchmarks emerge, it's hard to believe we'll really pack up and leave if they're not met.

Let's be clear -- this is an escalation. It's a reasonable one, for now. But these things tend to snowball. To echo Robert Frost, way leads on to way. And if things deteriorate, or if our allies depart, it's easier to imagine that additional escalation (rather than minimalism) will follow. It's not that I don't believe in the goal -- I'm just skeptical that increased military efforts are capable of achieving these goals.

While I disagree with Publius that the objective is unclear, I can certainly see Obama getting boxed in if the mission fails - his newfound neocon friends will push him to commit more troops and treasure, operating on the sunk-cost principle, and wanting to be seen as a strong President, he'll do so. They have a word for leaders like that: Lyndon Johnson.

Obama enters into this with a public fairly wary of an escalating commitment to Afghanistan and Pakistan. They support the President personally, and as he explained it on Friday they will support his mission in the short term. But as the days drag on, and the end appears further and further from view, war fatigue and the concern over the economy will make it very difficult to sustain that support at home. Ultimately, some will start talking about "containment" and when we can bring the troops home and turn this into a law enforcement and intelligence mission. And I don't know what Obama's answer would be.

Zardari Blinks

I didn't think it would turn out this cleanly, and it probably hasn't. But the Pakistan crisis has at least been delayed, as the government decided to reinstate Iftikhar Chaudhry as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. This led Nawaz Sharif to call off the "Long March," as this was its goal. Some reports are calling this the first triumph of diplomacy for one Hillary Clinton.

WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s appears to have succeeded in persuading warring political leaders in Pakistan to soften their attitudes towards each other, the US media reported on Saturday.

Various US television and radio networks noted that soon after Secretary Clinton called President Asif Ali Zardari, a presidential spokesman announced in Islamabad that the government will restore the deposed judges in the light of Charter of Democracy and will file a review petition in the Supreme Court to undo the disqualification of Sharif brothers.

A spokesman for opposition leader Nawaz Sharif later described these decisions as ‘a corrective measure,’ the US media noted.

If true, that would be great, and another sign of a positive foreign policy from the Obama Administration. However, the fact that local police in Punjab apparently refused to honor the house arrest for Sharif forced Zardari to recalculate and give in to demands to save his political skin. Plus, as Juan Cole notes, Pakistan's political strife is not over.

The Punjabi population resents Zardari's imposition of 'governor's rule" or a Federal take-over of the province, which has an elected provincial legislature in which the PMLN is the leading party. And, the Sharifs are not going to put up with being excluded from politics, and Zardari and his courts tried to do.

Those issues have to be resolved before the political situation can calm down. Moreover, Iftikhar Chaudhry is himself an iconoclast, and what if he indicts Musharraf or even Zardari? Or maybe Dick Cheney. If Chaudhry is worried about Pakistanis who were made to disappear without habeas corpus or formal legal proceedings, as part of a 'war on terror,' I have suggestions for perpetrators he should look into, who now live in Texas.

So, good news, but not an end by any means.

Chaos In Pakistan

Sorry to harp on Pakistan, but when a nuclear-armed country experiences this kind of political unrest, I take notice. There was hope going into the weekend that Prime Minister Zardari would make enough concessions to satisfy the opposition. However, despite pressure from the Obama Administration and the world community to allow the peaceful protests, Zardari rejected reconciliation and placed Nawaz Sharif under house arrest. However, Sharif defied that house arrest and participated in a massive demonstration in Lahore which grew violent.

Pakistan's opposition leader defied house arrest on Sunday to lead anti-government protests that briefly turned violent before becoming a jubilant show of force against the country's pro-Western president.

Opposition leader Nawaz Sharif called the mass rally a "prelude to a revolution."

The power struggle between the former prime minister and President Asif Ali Zardari threatens to paralyze the government and, alarmingly for the U.S., distract the nuclear-armed country from its fight against Taliban militants operating along the Afghan border.

Hundreds of police surrounded Sharif's residence in Lahore, carrying an order for his house arrest, party spokesman Pervaiz Rasheed said. But Sharif, who denounced the order as illegal, later left the house in a convoy of vehicles and headed into town.

Riot police had earlier fought running battles with stone-throwing protesters, turning the downtown into a battle zone littered with rocks and clouded with tear gas and smoke. A mob smashed windows of buses parked along the route of Sharif's convoy.

Eventually, the police did draw back, no doubt because of the negative publicity. But this is truly terrible. Sharif is speaking the language of revolution, and will probably continue on to tomorrow's proposed mass sit-in at the Parliament. And there are signs of ethnic conflict between Sharif's base in Punjab and the Sindhi forces throughout the rest of the country. This is all happening while the government still needs to battle extremist militia in sections of the country, and the political strife is unquestionably a distraction.

I don't see how this ends well. Zardari believes, not without cause, that reinstating judges will lead to them bringing back up his corruption cases, leading to his arrest. Sharif clearly believes his revolutionary rhetoric that he can force his way into power. While Pakistan may not be a failed state, it's certainly an unstable one, with seemingly intractable problems. And thanks to the Bush years, we have a dearth of influence in the region. The Taliban is not going to topple the government and control a nuclear arsenal anytime soon, but there is a danger that extremism could rise when freed from battles with a distracted government. And this kind of uncertainty is very nerve-wracking.

Most Dangerous Trouble Spot In The World Update

This is actually good news. The US and the UK have been leading hard on the Zardari government to arrive at a deal in their increasingly boisterous political standoff, and there are tentative signs that such a deal is being made.

The chief of the army, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, met Friday with Mr. Zardari, and with the prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gillani, in what politicians said was an imminent decision to lift executive rule in Punjab Province, one of Mr. Sharif’s demands for stepping back from confrontation.

Mr. Zardari placed the Punjab, the most populous province in Pakistan and the stronghold of Mr. Sharif, under the rule of the governor on Feb. 25, and effectively dismissed the provincial assembly, where Mr. Sharif’s party predominates.

Pakistani leaders were also discussing a Feb. 25 Supreme Court decision that disqualified Mr. Sharif and his brother, Shahbaz, from elective office, politicians from both the ruling and opposition parties said.

That decision has been widely criticized in the Pakistani press and among politicians as a political ruling carried out at Mr. Zardari’s behest.

It's a good start, but considering that the reinstatement of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, was what sparked mass protests both against Pervez Musharraf and Zardari, and that is not to be found in this deal, I wonder how successful it would be in stopping the marches. This may appease Nawaz Sharif, who Juan Cole thinks is not respecting democracy by threatening open rebellion against the elected government, but it doesn't address the larger question.

This report from Middle East Progress gets at many of the thornier issues, which are complex. One thing is clear, however; this situation, no matter how unstable, is better than another military coup. An excerpt:

Mr. Sharif’s PML-N lost out to the PPP in the 2008 elections due to a sympathy vote after Ms. Bhutto’s assassination. Unable to digest the prospect of sitting out in the cold for another four years (Musharraf had exiled him earlier for nine years), Mr. Sharif desperately wants the restoration of the deposed chief justice, Iftikhar Chaudhry, in the fair expectation that the latter would hold all Musharraf acts illegal – including the reprieve from corruption granted to Mr. Zardari and several PPP leaders – and thereby compel a mid-term election later this year or next. Mr. Sharif is capitalizing on his rising nation-wide popularity in the wake of the plunging fortunes of the ruling PPP and its coalition partners, the results of a run of bad political decisions by Mr. Zardari, including retaining the chairmanship of the PPP while serving as president of Pakistan and having a party loyalist acting as prime minister. Mr. Zardari’s refusal to reinstate Mr. Chaudhry has led Mr. Sharif to join hands with a simmering country-wide lawyers’ movement in support of Mr. Chaudhry. The joint opposition has launched a “Long March” on Islamabad from all over the country, starting March 12 and reaching its destination for an interminable “sit-in” outside parliament in Islamabad on March 16 [...]

Pakistan is unraveling. The only recipe is more democracy, not less, so that civilian support for, and ownership of, the war on terror can be manufactured and strengthened. Western efforts must be focused on strengthening the economy (there is no substitute for jobs, well-being and upward mobility in ensuring a political stake in the system rather than Long Marches and terrorism) and retraining and re-equipping the Pakistani military to cope with insurgency. Above all, greater intervention is needed in discreetly but firmly knocking political heads together in Pakistan. The last thing the United States should consider is a wink and a nod to another army general to seize power. The war against Al Qaeda and the Taliban will eventually be won in the hearts and minds of the people.

Read the whole thing.

Most Dangerous Trouble Spot In The World Update

The "long march" has begun in Pakistan.

Police in the Pakistani city of Karachi have used sticks to beat up protesters as lawyers and political activists began an anti-government protest march.

Organisers intend the four-day march from cities across Pakistan to culminate in a sit-in at the parliament in the capital, Islamabad, on Monday.

They want President Asif Ali Zardari to fulfil a pledge to reinstate all judges sacked under his predecessor.

The government says the march is aimed at destabilising the country.

Police say they have arrested more than 400 opposition activists in the past few days.

The authorities have also banned political gatherings across the country, saying they could trigger bloodshed.

Right now organizers are describing this as a peaceful march. And I believe them. But mass arrests and violent incidents are not necessarily going to be met with calm. It's just a very tense situation, and Zardari's popularity is plummeting. Pervez Musharraf lost his job after fights with the same groups and attempts to crack down on the independent judiciary.

More in The New York Times. The government is saying that they've banned the protest march, but it continues. These are very nervous times in Pakistan. Banning the freedom to peaceably assemble is anti-democratic, and I don't know how the lawyers can possibly achieve their goals without toppling the Zardari government. I fear chaos.

Most Dangerous Trouble Spot In The World Update

The Vice President gave a speech to NATO yesterday, basically urging the membership to get involved in Afghanistan. I don't think it will be very successful, though he is right that there is a shared national security interest to deny a regional safe haven for extremists. The problem, of course, is that there already is one, in Pakistan and in the FATA areas. Pakistan is currently in the throes of a political crisis, that would cause instability and allow extremist forces to operate more freely. The fear is not that the Taliban takes over Pakistan, but that the political wrangling between Asif Ali Zardari and Nawaz Sharif will predominate, and leave the leadership up for grabs. It's basically an old-fashioned political squabble

A conflict developed between Nawaz Sharif and PPP leader Asaf Ali Zardari over the deposed chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhury. Dictator Musharraf had dismissed Chaudhury in spring of 2007 for opposing some of his policies. Pakistan's massive legal establishment began holding rallies and demanding that the chief justice be reinstated, which he was in summer 2007. Musharraf was under pressure from Washington to become a civilian president. But he found out that fall that the supreme court would not allow this transition because the constitution requires that a military man have been out of the service for 2 years before becoming president. So Musharraf just dismissed the whole supreme court, including the recently reinstated Chaudhury, and appointed a new court, which sycophantically recognized him as president.

When he was allowed to come back to Pakistan from exile in Saudi Arabia, Nawaz Sharif, who had been overthrown as prime minister in 1999 by Musharraf, began demanding that Iftikhar Chaudhury and the old, dismissed, supreme court be reinstated.

After the PPP won the parliamentary elections, its leader, Zardari, declined to reinstate Chaudhury. Zardari was afraid that the chief justice might reinstate the corruption charges against him, which had been amnestied by Musharraf [...]

But just last week, the supreme court dismissed Shahbaz Sharif as chief minister of Punjab, and barred him and Nawaz Sharif from running for office. Some suspect the court of acting at President Zardari's behest.

The Sharif brothers say that this court is anyway illegitimate and refuse to recognize its rulings, since it is the fruit of a poisoned tree, i.e. the arbitrary creature of a desperate military dictator 18 months ago.

The attorneys are also still angry over the failure of Zardari to reinstate Chaudhury and the others.

So on March 15, the Muslim League (which is more conservative landlord than religious fundamentalist, despite the name) is organizing a "long march" on parliament to protest the current supreme court and the recent decisions it issued against the Sharifs.

On the hustings, Nawaz Sharif said that the only thing that could save Pakistan now was a revolution, and announced that he had "raised the standard of rebellion."

Pakistan is a young nation. These political struggles could easily break the country apart, with secession, a partition between areas, and perhaps a military coup to stop the factional fighting, with a return to dictatorship. And remember, this is a nuclear-armed state. It seems to me that Afghanistan is almost an afterthought compared to the dangers here.

It's not that Biden and the Administration aren't doing some things right in the region - they are realistically looking at folding certain Taliban elements into the state, which may or may not be successful but it at least inventive, and they are halting some raids, mindful of the deleterious effect of civilian casualties on the battle for hearts and minds.

But Pakistan is a far more dire situation, one that requires immediate attention.

From The People That Brought You Zombie Banks...

Come zombie wars.

I don't know how else you can react to this assessment from military leaders in Afghanistan, pushing for a commitment of 100,000 troops for up to a decade.

Called a 'conceptual document,' the plan, authored by CENTCOM Commander Gen. David McKiernan, is based on a vast pacification scheme that would involve deploying large conventional U.S. forces to prevent the seizure of Afghan villages and towns by the Taliban while the United States and its allies strengthen support for the Afghan central government through a broad range of civil action programs, land reform, village autonomy, and expanded political participation by the populace, these sources said.

"It's a huge undertaking," said a former senior U.S. official who had reviewed the plan. "It would take 20-25 infantry brigades to implement."

He added that implementation of the plan would require a U.S. presence in Afghanistan for "at least a decade or more."

This is a pittance compared to Jack Murtha, who is saying that it would require 600,000 troops to stabilize the country. And that's if you even think the country can be stabilized - Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper thinks we are never going to defeat the insurgency. Hoo-boy. This must be why nobody who understands counter-insurgency wants to do it - it's too labor-intensive, too costly, too difficult.

Obama is not stupid, and surely he knows that this kind of outlay is not feasible, both from an international relations standpoint and an economic standpoint. And even a manpower standpoint - we don't have the forces to undertake endless, multiple occupations for 15-20 years. Yet there seems to be a strategic drift in Afghanistan. The commanders aren't offering anything new, the policy reviews aren't yielding fruit, but everyone seems to know that "something must be done" so a bunch of troops are being thrown into the situation without a sense of mission. Meanwhile those troops are increasingly targets (a major US base was attacked this week) as the Taliban-aligned insurgency are uniting to fight the expanding occupation. Joe Klein's story on the situation is increasingly grim:

Obama's civilian advisers fear a quagmire. But they know that some middle ground, between a "Central Asian Valhalla," as Secretary of Defense Robert Gates put it, and the current slide into chaos, has to be found. "We have to stabilize the military situation," said an Obama aide. "Continue to build up the Afghan army, and help the government to become more effective." In other words, hope that the disintegration of Afghanistan can be prevented while waiting — and hoping — for the Pakistanis to take effective action against the al-Qaeda and Taliban safe havens.

Taken together, the emerging Pakistan and Afghanistan policies sound ... impossible, but unavoidable. They will also be politically treacherous. Already, John McCain has made it clear that his position on Afghanistan will be the same as it was on Iraq — in favor of more troops. Obama could easily find himself in the same sort of hawk-vs.-dove debate that has boggled American Presidents from Vietnam to Iraq. Traditionally, Presidents favor more troops — and precipitously lose public support. In this case, Obama's margin for error is minuscule, given the enormity of the economic crisis. He simply can't get bogged down in Afghanistan. And he simply can't allow al-Qaeda and the Taliban free rein. And every option in between seems either a gamble or a fantasy.

As we get a sense of Obama's vision for the way forward in the region, we see only two things that are encouraging. One, he understands that Harper is right, we're not ever going to "defeat" the insurgency, and we need to lower our goals to somewhere in between chaos and a shining beacon of democracy. That is why he is skeptical of Hamid Karzai, whose bid to subvert the elections by moving up the date was rebuffed this week by the election commission, revealing further fault lines and an inability for Karzai to manage what little of the country he controls.

The other sign is that Obama understand that Pakistan is where the real battle is being waged. That understanding does not necessarily equal a solution, however.

The fourth policy review was ordered up — this one conducted by Bruce Riedel, a scholar at the Brookings Institution. The Riedel review won't be done until the end of March, but it has already achieved some clarity about U.S. goals and priorities: "Afghanistan pales in comparison to the problems in Pakistan," said an official familiar with Riedel's thinking. "Our primary goal has to be to shut down the al-Qaeda and Taliban safe havens on the Pakistan side of the border. If that can be accomplished, then the insurgency in Afghanistan becomes manageable."

That sounds reasonable enough, except that historically it has proved to be impossible. "People talk glibly of 'the total disarmament of the frontier tribes' as being the obvious policy," wrote the young Winston Churchill, who gallivanted, a bit too gleefully, with a 19th century British expeditionary force through the areas where al-Qaeda and the Taliban are now ensconced. "But to obtain it would be as painful and as tedious an undertaking as to extract the stings of a swarm of hornets, with naked fingers."

Through sheer brutality, the British were able to manage the area — now called Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province — but never quite subdue it. The chances of subduing it today are even more remote. "Obviously, we're not going to invade Pakistan," said a senior member of the Riedel review. "We have to convince the Pakistanis to do the job. But we haven't had much luck with that in the past." In fact, the Pakistani army and Inter-Services Intelligence agency have supported the Taliban as a counterforce against India's influence in Afghanistan, just as they supported jihadi groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba, which carried out the Mumbai massacre. "Our hope is that the Pakistani army is beginning to understand that the Taliban represent an existential threat to their country," said the Riedel team member. "Certainly, President Zardari understands that. The Taliban killed his wife, Benazir Bhutto, and he's now target No. 1. But does he have any influence over the army? And is the army really concerned about the threat? I'll believe it when I see it."

Since this went to press, Sri Lanka's national cricket team was brazenly attacked in broad daylight in Lahore. The Indian government compared Pakistan to Somalia, a lawless, anarchic state (this is actually the GOOD news, as India may tone down the rhetoric and stop approaching Pakistan as a military rival). Taliban militants in the northwest regions blew up a Sufi shrine, with echoes of the destruction of the Buddha statues in Afghanistan years earlier. And today, UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Pakistan is under a mortal threat:

Mr Miliband told the BBC that politicians must unite to face a "very grave situation" that was worsening.

He was speaking as Pakistan continued to probe this week's attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore.

Mr Miliband told BBC Radio's Today programme that Pakistan's internal instability was "a grave situation and... it has got worse".

He pointed to the fallout between President Asif Ali Zardari and former PM Nawaz Sharif, who was last week banned from elected office by the Supreme Court.

Mr Miliband urged politicians to unite, saying: "I think that the degree of political disunity that exists at the moment is only contributing to the problem."

He added that country's economic decline in the global credit crunch was also a major factor.

This is our "partner" upon whom success in Afghanistan rests.

Perhaps we will get a handful more NATO troops involved. And maybe those Afghan security forces will snap to it and become a superior fighting unit. And perhaps Pakistan will stabilize, the military and intelligence services will effectively neutralize the Taliban, and the border crossings will stop. And through regional diplomacy, an uneasy peace will commence.

Do you really believe any of that?

Wanted: Courage

Ehud Olmert gives a quite stunning interview in which he states that Israel must withdraw from the West Bank and East Jerusalem for the sake of peace and a two-state solution, and that notions of attacking Iran's nuclear facilities are ridiculous.

He said that traditional Israeli defense strategists had learned nothing from past experiences and that they seemed stuck in the considerations of the 1948 war of independence.

“With them, it is all about tanks and land and controlling territories and controlled territories and this hilltop and that hilltop,” he said. “All these things are worthless.”

He added, “Who thinks seriously that if we sit on another hilltop, on another hundred meters, that this is what will make the difference for the State of Israel’s basic security?”

Of course, he said all this the day after he resigned as the Kadima Party leader and Prime Minister of the country, when he no longer had, you know, control over these policies. And this is the central contradiction of politics - citizens claim to value honesty from their leaders, but so many roadblocks are constructed to prevent it. What we need in the world is more courage.

And one thing I think everyone can agree on is that we need less world leaders who are willing to believe debunked right-wing email forwards. Who knew that Asif Ali Zardari gets the same crap emails that my uncle sends me?

World Report

Because I'm almost out of here, I'll just mash these together, but they're all important, and would all merit a post of their own.

• So the ruling party in Pakistan chose Benazir Bhutto's widow, Asif Ali Zardari, to be their President. Of course, when Bhutto was Prime Minister, she and Zardari bilked the country for millions upon millions. Zardari doesn't want to reinstate Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, the head of the Supreme Court, because Chaudhry might then arrest him. So this is cutting a wedge through the fragile coalition. The former Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, wants to slash the Presidential power before Zardari accedes to the position. Sharif's Muslim League also wants Chaudhry back on the bench. Pakistan is a mess, and a mess we can't afford right now.

• While George Bush finally came around on a withdrawal timeline, he's still not all the way where Muqtada al-Sadr needs him to be:

The debate over a deal that would chart the future of U.S. troops in Iraq has reignited the rhetoric coming from Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada Sadr, who denounced the plan Friday for not setting a firm date for American withdrawal [...]

Iraq's government spokesman, Ali Dabbagh, reiterated Friday that any departure of U.S. troops was "subject to Iraqi national security" and that the dates were hypothetical. The final departure date "will be jointly set" by Iraq and the United States, he said, downplaying suggestions that the draft was the final deal.

At the weekly prayer service in Sadr's Baghdad stronghold of Sadr City, chants of "No to the agreement!" rang out through loudspeakers positioned along the street. Worshipers responded with applause and repeated the chant as the service ended and people drifted away [...]

At prayer services across the country, Sadrist preachers said any deal struck with the Americans was a blow to Iraq's sovereignty. In Sadr City, listeners agreed.

"Everyone is talking about how it will really serve the interests of the Americans, not the Iraqis," said Mohammed Fadim, whose well-stocked grocery store overlooks the wide avenue where worshipers knelt side by side in prayer. "Everyone knows the U.S. administration. Once they occupy a country, if they want to make an agreement to stay, 80% of the terms will fulfill their interests."

This is bad news. Sadr leads a cultural movement regardless of who holds the guns, and Maliki was pushed to a timeline in the first place because of pressure from the Sadrists. If Sadr turns against a deal pushed by the Parliament, Maliki's team will be crushed in the provincial elections. Just the act of getting this ratified (Maliki is going through the Parliament) could rip the country to shreds. Not good.

• In a neglected corner of the "war on terror," Somalia is going to crap.

Islamic militants said Saturday they had seized control of Somalia's third largest city after three days of fighting that left about 70 people dead and saw thousands flee Kismayo.

The Islamic courts movement, which controlled the capital, Mogadishu, and much of the south for six months in 2006, said it wrested control of the southern port city of Kismayo from clan militias.

The ICU never really stopped fighting, as the US paid little or no attention, despite the fact that Somalia, with almost no real government and extreme poverty, is a hotbed for extremism. This goes down as another failure of Bush-era foreign policy.

• Russia is leaving Georgia. Mostly leaving. Georgia is apparently disputing the checkpoints Russia has set up in Georgian territory. It's a bit dodgy, but to characterize it as the greatest crisis since the Cold War is king of nuts.