UPDATE: Mehsud Claims Responsibility for Lahore Attack; 18 Dead

The Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud (pictured has told the BBC that his organization carried out Monday's attack on the Lahore police station, in which 18 people died, ""in retaliation for the continued drone strikes on by the US in collaboration with Pakistan on our people". Eight attackers were among the dead; another four have been detained.

There is a wider significance to Mehsud's statement, missed by the BBC. Last month, a coalition of Pakistani insurgent groups in the Northwest Provinces agreed to suspend attacks within the country, concentrating instead of the fight against American troops in Afghanistan. The news came shortly after reports that Mehsud had been "sacked" by Afghanistan Taliban Mullah Omar for refusing to halt internal operations.

Thus the Obama Administration, as it launches its new strategy for Pakistan, faces some local groups who are devoted to fighting battles in Afghanistan and also the challenge posed within the country by Mehsud. Already a "two-front" war is developing.

Transcript: Secretary of Defense Gates on Fox News Sunday (29 March)

HOST CHRIS WALLACE: This week, President Obama took ownership of the war in Afghanistan. Here for an exclusive interview on the new strategy as well as other tough challenges around the world is the Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

And, Mr. Secretary, welcome back to “FOX News Sunday.”

GATES: Thank you, Chris.

WALLACE: Let’s start with President Obama’s mission statement Friday on the new strategy in Afghanistan. Here it is.



OBAMA: ... that we have a clear and focused goal to disrupt, dismantle and defeat Al Qaida in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: President Bush used to talk about building a flourishing democracy. Has President Obama narrowed our mission and, if so, why? GATES: I think the -- the near-term objectives have been narrowed. I think our long-term objective still would be to see a flourishing democracy in Afghanistan.

But I think what we need to focus on and focus our efforts is making headway in reversing the Taliban’s momentum and strengthening the Afghan army and police, and -- and really going after Al Qaida, as the president said.

WALLACE: Yeah, I’m going to pick up on that. The president said that Al Qaida is actively planning attacks against the U.S. homeland. Does Al Qaida still have that kind of operational capability to plan and pull off those kinds of attacks?

GATES: They certainly have the capability to plan, and in many ways they have metastasized, with elements in North Africa, in the Levant, in the Horn of Africa and elsewhere, and they aren’t necessarily directly controlled from Al Qaida in western Pakistan, but they are trained there. They often get guidance from there and inspiration from there.

So I think they do have those capabilities. They clearly have been inhibited by all the things that have been done over the last six or seven years.

WALLACE: When you say they still have those capabilities to pull off an attack on the U.S. homeland, do you still regard them as a very serious threat?

GATES: I still regard them as a very serious threat, yes.

WALLACE: U.S. commanders in the field wanted more combat troops than the 17,000 that President Obama committed.

Why did he decide against committing all of those additional combat troops? And will there be enough for the kind of counterinsurgency, living among the population, protecting the population, that was so key to the success of the surge in Iraq?

GATES: Well, let me be very clear about this. The president has approved every single soldier that I have requested of him. I have not sent any requests for units or troops to the president so far that he has not approved.

Now, the reality is I’ve been at this a long time, and I don’t think I’ve ever in several decades run into a ground commander who thought he had enough troops. That’s probably true in all of history.

But we have fulfilled all of the requirements that General McKiernan has put down for 2009, and my view is there’s no need to ask for more troops, ask the president to approve more troops, until we see how the troops we -- he already has approved are in there, how they are doing, what the Europeans have done. And we will be reviewing that come the end of the year.

WALLACE: And are there enough for the kind of counterinsurgency tactics -- living in the population, protecting the population -- that we saw so successful in Iraq?

GATES: Well, based on the requirements that have been levied by General McKiernan for 2009, that would be his view, I think.

And the reality is there already are a lot of troops there. This will bring us, when all is said and done, to about 68,000 troops, plus another 35,000 or so Europeans and other partners.

WALLACE: What kind of long-term commitment has the president given you? Has he promised you that he will stay in Afghanistan until the Taliban, in fact, are -- and Al Qaida are defeated?

GATES: He has clearly -- he clearly understands that this is a very tough fight and that we’re in it until we’re successful, that Al Qaida is no longer a threat to the United States, and that -- and that we are in no danger of either Afghanistan or the western part of Pakistan being a base for Al Qaida.

By the same token, I think he’s been clear -- and frankly, it was my view in our discussions -- that we don’t want to just pursue -- settle on this strategy and then pursue it blindly and open-endedly.

And that’s why I felt very strongly that toward the end of the year or about a year from now we need to reevaluate this strategy and see if we’re making progress.

WALLACE: But the strategy is subject to review. The commitment to defeat the Taliban and Al Qaida -- is that subject to review?

GATES: I don’t think so.

WALLACE: That is the commitment.

GATES: Certainly, to defeat Al Qaida and -- and make sure that Afghanistan and western Pakistan are not safe havens for them.

WALLACE: There were reports this week that elements of Pakistani intelligence, the ISI, are providing the Taliban and other extremists with money, supplies, even tips on allied missions against them. One, is it true? And two, if so, can we stop it?

GATES: Well, the way I would answer is to say that we certainly have concerns about the contacts of -- between the Pakistani intelligence service and the -- and some of these groups in the past.

But the reality is the Pakistanis have had contacts with these groups since they were fighting the Soviets 20 or 25 years ago when I first was dealing with the Pakistanis on this, and I must say also helping make sure that some of those same groups got weapons from our safe haven in Pakistan.

But with people like Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and the Haghani [Haqqani] network, the Pakistanis have had contacts with these people for a long time, I think partly as a hedge against what might happen in Afghanistan if we were to walk away or whatever. What we need to do is try and help the Pakistanis understand these groups are now an existential threat to them and that we will be there as a steadfast ally for Pakistan, that they can count on us and that they don’t need that hedge.

WALLACE: There’s a NATO summit coming up next week in Europe. Have we given up on the idea of getting our allies to send more combat troops to fight alongside the U.S. in Afghanistan?

GATES: No, we haven’t. And in fact, I think some of our allies will send additional forces there to provide security before the August elections in Afghanistan.

But I think what we’re really interested in for the longer term from our partners and the allies is helping us with this civilian surge in terms of experts in agriculture, and finance, and governance and so on, to help us improve the situation inside Afghanistan, give a sense of forward progress on the part of the Afghan people.

Also, police trainers -- you know, the Caribinieri, the Guardia Seville, these various groups in Europe are really very good paramilitary-type police, and I think they could do a good job in the police training, so those will be probably the principal focus of our requests.

WALLACE: New subject. North Korea says that it will launch a communications satellite sometime in the next few days. They have, in fact, even moved a missile out to the launch pad. Several questions. Why are we so troubled by an activity that the North Koreans say is civilian?

GATES: Well, I think that they’re -- I don’t know anyone at a senior level in the American government who does not believe this technology is intended as a mask for the development of an intercontinental ballistic missile.

WALLACE: Do we believe that they now have the ability to put a nuclear warhead on top of a missile, as the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, General Maples, suggested?

GATES: I think that we believe that that’s their long-term intent. I personally would be skeptical that they have the ability right now to do that.

WALLACE: The commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, Admiral Keating, says that we are, quote, “fully prepared” to shoot down this missile. Are there any circumstances under which we will do that?

GATES: Well, I think if we had an aberrant missile, one that was headed for Hawaii, that looked like it was headed for Hawaii or something like that, we might consider it. But I don’t think we have any plans to do anything like that at this point.

WALLACE: What if it were headed for the West Coast, for Alaska?

GATES: Well, we -- I don’t think we believe this missile can do that.

WALLACE: And what about the Japanese? Obviously -- would -- they have some of our technology. Do we believe they’re going to -- prepared to shoot this down?

GATES: Well, again, based on what I read in the newspapers, what the Japanese are saying is that the -- if that missile fails, and it looks like it’s going to drop debris on Japan, that they might take some action.

WALLACE: You’re basically discussing this, Mr. Secretary, as if it’s going to happen.

GATES: The launch?

WALLACE: Yeah.

GATES: I think it probably will.

WALLACE: And there’s nothing we can do about it?

GATES: Nope.

WALLACE: And what does that say to you?

GATES: Well, I would say we’re not prepared to do anything about it.

WALLACE: There are reports -- well, let me -- I want to stay with that. What does that say to you about the North Korean regime, that -- that we and the rest of the world can all say that this is -- you know, a provocative act, an unlawful act, and they thumb our noses and we’re not going to do anything about it?

GATES: Well, I think it’s very troubling. The reality is that the six-party talks really have not made any headway any time recently.

There has certainly been no -- if this is Kim Jong-il’s welcoming present to a new president, launching a missile like this and threatening to have a nuclear test, I think it says a lot about the imperviousness of this -- of this regime in North Korea to any kind of diplomatic overtures.

WALLACE: There are reports that the Obama White House has asked you to cut $2 billion from the next budget for missile defense, roughly 20 percent. Is this president less committed? Is he less convinced that this program will work than President Bush was?

GATES: Well, I don’t know about the comparison. I would say -- I would tell you that I have not received any specific requests from the White House in terms of our budget. We’ll be talking about that. We have the top line number.

We receive what we call a pass-back from the Office of Management and Budget, but I considered the suggestions that they made simply those, suggestions. I’ve taken some of them and some of them I haven’t.

WALLACE: But do you regard there is a new skepticism in the part of the White House towards missile defense?

GATES: I think that -- I think one of the things that we need to do is sit down and go through the capabilities that we have, the tests that we’ve been through, and -- and focus on where -- where we need to sustain development, where we need to sustain a commitment to have a capability.

WALLACE: So it sounds like that’s under review.

GATES: I think so.

WALLACE: There are so many trouble spots around the world, but I want to do a lightning round tour of the horizon. I know this is not your thing, Mr. Secretary, but let’s try to do quick questions, quick answers.

Iraq -- do you see any developments so far that might cause you to have to slow down President Obama’s time line to pull out of the major cities by this summer and to get our combat troops out by August of 2010?

GATES: I haven’t seen anything at this point that would lead me to think that there will be a need to change the time lines.

WALLACE: Iran -- you said recently -- you said recently that they are not close to a nuclear weapon. Admiral Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, says that they have enough material to make a bomb. Is there a contradiction there?

GATES: No. What they have is -- is probably enough low-enriched uranium from their centrifuges at Natanz to give them the capacity should they then enrich it more highly to proceed to make a weapon. They don’t have the capability at this point to enrich. We were suspicious they may be building one clandestinely.

We do not believe they are doing enriching beyond a low level at Natanz, and the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] is in there, so we will know if they tried to do that. So I guess the point -- the bridge between what Admiral Mullen said and what I’ve said is they do have enough low-enriched uranium that if they should then proceed to enrich it more highly, they could build a weapon.

WALLACE: You expressed, I think it would be fair to say, extreme skepticism about the ability of diplomacy to alter the behavior of the North Koreans. Do you feel the same way about the Iranians?

GATES: Well, I think -- I think, frankly, from my perspective the opportunity for success is probably more in economic sanctions in both places than it is in diplomacy.

Diplomacy -- perhaps if there is enough economic pressure placed on Iran, diplomacy can provide them an open door through which they can walk if they choose to change their policies, and so I think the two go hand in hand, but I think what gets them to the table is economic sanctions.

WALLACE: A couple of more questions for the lightning round. Mexico -- the Pentagon issued a report in November on the growing drug violence there that said this, “An unstable Mexico could represent a homeland security problem of immense proportions to the United States.”

Mr. Secretary, how likely is that scenario, that the Mexican government loses control of part of the country?

GATES: I don’t think that’s a likely scenario at this point. I think that a lot of the violence is -- is among or between the cartels as they strive for control of certain areas in Mexico.

I think President Calderon has acted with enormous courage and forcefully in sending troops in to try and get control of that situation.

And I think that -- as I think Admiral Blair testified just in the last couple of days, I think that the chances of the Mexican government losing control of some part of their country or becoming a failed state is -- are very low.

WALLACE: In January, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs gave a one-word answer, “yes,” when asked if this president is going to end the policy of “don’t ask, don’t tell” for gays in the military.

Where does that stand? And why is there currently money in the 2010 budget to keep enforcing that policy?

GATES: Well, it continues to be the law. And any change in the policy would require a change in the law. We will follow the law, whatever it is.

That dialogue, though, has really not progressed very far at this point in the administration. I think the president and I feel like we’ve got a lot on our plates right now, and let’s push that one down the road a little bit.

WALLACE: And finally, and we have just a minute left, President Bush used to talk about the global war on terror. This administration, this White House, seems to steer away from that.

In fact, in his speech on Friday, President Obama talked about a campaign against extremism. Beyond the words, is there a strategic difference between the way these two presidents see the fight?

GATES: I think that they -- they both see Al Qaida as a threat to the United States, Al Qaida and its extremist allies. And I think they both have made clear their determination to go after it.

We have the opportunity now that perhaps we did not have before to apply the kind of resources, both military and civilian, against it and a broader kind of strategy that we did not have before.

WALLACE: But a difference between saying war on terror or campaign against extremism...

GATES: I think that’s people looking for differences where there are none.

WALLACE: Mr. Secretary, I want to thank you so much for coming in. We got through everything. Thank you. Please come back, sir.

GATES: My pleasure. Thank you.

Concerns Over Mr Obama's War in Pakistan: Will It Assist the Insurgency?

Most of the US media are still caught up in euphoria over the proposed Obama strategy on Afghanistan and Pakistan, concentrating on the headlines of expanded US military presence, aid, and civilian participation instead of considering how local groups and communities will responded to an increased American intervention.

Once again, Gareth Porter --- who chronicled the internal Obama Administration debates over the strategy --- offers a different perspective. Writing for Inter Press Service, He lays out the concerns of those who think that expanded US strikes on northwest Pakistan will enhance, rather than diminish, the position of Al Qa'eda and local insurgents.

Some Strategists Cast Doubt on Afghan War Rationale

The argument for deeper U.S. military commitment to the Afghan War invoked by President Barack Obama in his first major policy statement on Afghanistan and Pakistan Friday - that al Qaeda must be denied a safe haven in Afghanistan - has been not been subjected to public debate in Washington.

A few influential strategists here have been arguing, however, that this official rationale misstates the al Qaeda problem and ignores the serious risk that an escalating U.S. war poses to Pakistan.

Those strategists doubt that al Qaeda would seek to move into Afghanistan as long as they are ensconced in Pakistan and argue that escalating U.S. drone airstrikes or Special Operations raids on Taliban targets in Pakistan will actually strengthen radical jihadi groups in the country and weaken the Pakistani government’s ability to resist them.

The first military strategist to go on record with such a dissenting view on Afghanistan and Pakistan was Col. T. X. Hammes, a retired Marine officer and author of the 2004 book "The Sling and the Stone", which argued that the U.S. military faces a new type of warfare which it would continue to lose if it did not radically reorient its thinking. He became more widely known as one of the first military officers to call in September 2006 for Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s resignation over failures in Iraq.

Col. Hammes dissected the rationale for the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan in an article last September on the website of the "Small Wars Journal", which specialises in counterinsurgency issues. He questioned the argument that Afghanistan had to be stabilised in order to deny al Qaeda a terrorist base there, because, "Unfortunately, al Qaeda has moved its forces and its bases into Pakistan."

Hammes suggested that the Afghan War might actually undermine the tenuous stability of a Pakistani regime, thus making the al Qaeda threat far more serious. He complained that "neither candidate has even commented on how our actions [in Afghanistan] may be feeding Pakistan’s instability."

Hammes, who has since joined the Institute for Defence Analysis, a Pentagon contractor, declined to comment on the Obama administration’s rationale for the Afghan War for this article.

Kenneth Pollack, the director of research at the Saban Centre for Middle East Policy of the Brookings Institution, has also expressed doubt about the official argument for escalation in Afghanistan. Pollack’s 2002 book, "The Threatening Storm," was important in persuading opinion-makers in Washington to support the Bush administration’s use of U.S. military force against the Saddam Hussein regime, and he remains an enthusiastic supporter of the U.S. military presence in Iraq.

But at a Brookings forum Dec. 16, Pollack expressed serious doubts about the strategic rationale for committing the U.S. military to Afghanistan. Contrasting the case for war in Afghanistan with the one for war in Iraq in 2003, he said, it is "much harder to see the tie between Afghanistan and our vital interests."

Like Hammes, Pollack argued that it is Pakistan, where al Qaeda’s leadership has flourished since being ejected from Afghanistan, which could clearly affect those vital interests. And additional U.S. troops in Afghanistan, Pollack pointed out, "are not going to solve the problems of Pakistan."

Responding to a question about the possibility of U.S. attacks against Taliban sanctuaries in Pakistan paralleling the U.S. efforts during the Vietnam War to clean out the Communist "sanctuaries" in Cambodia, Pollack expressed concern about that possibility. "The more we put the troops into Afghanistan," said Pollack, "the more we are tempted to mount cross-border operations into Pakistan, exactly as we did in Vietnam."

Pollack cast doubt on the use of either drone bombing attacks or Special Operations commando raids into Pakistan as an approach to dealing with the Taliban sanctuaries in Pakistan. "The only way to do it is to mount a full-scale counterinsurgency campaign," said Pollack, "which seems unlikely in the case of Pakistan."

The concern raised by Hammes and Pollack about the war in Afghanistan spilling over into Pakistan paralleled concerns in the U.S. intelligence community about the effect on Pakistan of commando raids by U.S. Special Operations forces based in Afghanistan against targets inside Pakistan. In mid-August 2008, the National Intelligence Council presented to the White House the consensus view of the intelligence community that such Special Forces raids, which were then under consideration, could threaten the unity of the Pakistani military if continued long enough, as IPS reported Sep. 9.

Despite that warning, a commando raid was carried out on a target in South Waziristan Sep. 3, reportedly killing as many as 20 people, mostly apparently civilians. A Pentagon official told Army Times reporter Sean D. Naylor that the raid was in response to cross-border activities by Taliban allies with the complicity of the Pakistani military’s Frontier Corps.

Although that raid was supposed to be the beginning of a longer campaign, it was halted because of the virulence of the political backlash in Pakistan that followed, according to Naylor’s Sep. 29 report. The raid represented "a strategic miscalculation," one U.S. official told Naylor. "We did not fully appreciate the vehemence of the Pakistani response."

The Pakistani military sent a strong message to Washington by demonstrating that they were willing to close down U.S. supply routes through the Khyber Pass talking about shooting at U.S. helicopters.

The commando raids were put on hold for the time being, but the issue of resuming them was part of the Obama administration’s policy review. That aspect of the review has not been revealed.

Meanwhile airstrikes by drone aircraft in Pakistan have sharply increased in recent months, increasingly targeting Pashtun allies of the Taliban.

Last week, apparently anticipating one result of the policy review, the New York Times reported Obama and his national security advisers were considering expanding the strikes by drone aircraft from the Tribal areas of Northwest Pakistan to Quetta, Baluchistan, where top Taliban leaders are known to be located.

But Daniel Byman, a former CIA analyst and counter-terrorism policy specialist at Georgetown University, who has been research director on the Middle East at the RAND corporation, told the Times that, if drone attacks were expanded as is now being contemplated, al Qaeda and other jihadist organisations might move "farther and farther into Pakistan, into cities".

Byman believes that would risk "weakening the government we want to bolster", which he says is "already to some degree a house of cards." The Times report suggested that some officials in the administration agree with Byman’s assessment.

The drone strikes are admitted by U.S. officials to be so unpopular with the Pakistani public that no Pakistani government can afford to appear to tolerate them, the Times reported.

But such dissenting views as those voiced by Hammes, Pollack and Byman are unknown on Capital Hill. At a hearing on Afghanistan before a subcommittee of the House Government Operations Committee Thursday, the four witnesses were all enthusiastic supporters of escalation, and the argument that U.S. troops must fight to prevent al Qaeda from getting a new sanctuary in Afghanistan never even came up for discussion.

Mr Obama's War for/on Pakistan-Afghanistan: Holes in the Middle

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Related Post: Two-Step Analysis of Mr Obama’s War Plan: Step One in Pakistan

Eighteen hours since Barack Obama laid out the strategy by which the United States will defeat Al Qa'eda and "terrorists" in Afghanistan, 24 hours after we projected both the Administration's approach and the problems with it, I have to say....

We got it right.

1. BRING ON THE MAGIC

The Administration has given the media two marvellous diversions....the headline of 4000 US trainers and the proclamation that the Administration, focusing on the threat of Al Qa’eda, is moving away from the Bush strategy of 'democracy promotion' in Afghanistan.

Obama did that and more. With the Kennedy-esque elevation of lots of aid and a boost of civilians in US programmes (not a huge boost, given the low levels of participation in the Bush years, but a symbolic "doubling"), combined with the show of military force and the harsh rhetoric against Osama's Men, the President was a masterful salesman.

The buzzword this morning is "consensus". Former Bush Administration official Peter Feaver, arch-colonialist Max Boot, and the caretaker of US power, Robert Kagan, swooned over more US boots on the ground to say, "Unlike his approach to economic matters, on national security Obama is acting in a fairly centrist and responsible manner." Robert Dreyfuss of The Nation, a strident critic of US foreign policy in recent years, thought this was a "work in progress" but it wasn't Bush's work in progress: "President Obama's new strategy for the Afghanistan-Pakistan war isn't Quaker-inspired, but it's not neocon-inspired, either." Daniel Markey of the Council on Foreign Relations told the BBC's PM programme that the Obama Administration had finally matched American resources to US intentions in the fight against Al Qa'eda.

Obama's magician's trick, with the re-production of the post-9/11 battle against bin Laden, was to keep his audience focused on how the US would triumph and divert them from against whom. Afghan and Pakistan populations disappeared before the sweeping invocation of a foreign menace threatening Asian, European, and African cities.

And not only the populations disappeared, so did the "real" political challenges that this US plan faces.

2. PUTTING THE PRESSURE ON PAKISTAN

Somehow the US has to turn the “good” elements in the Pakistani Government against the “rogue” elements in the ISI [Pakistani intelligence].

In case anyone thought Afghanistan was the first priority for Obama, his officials were quick to set the record straight. US envoy Richard Holbrooke laid out the new equation:

We have to deal with the western Pakistan problem....Our superiors would all freely admit that of all the dilemmas and challenges we face, that is going to be the most daunting...because it’s a sovereign country and there is a red line.

Even more striking, however, was the rather blunt re-statement of how the US is going to ensure a "proper" Pakistani Government and campaign against insurgents. Admiral Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told CNN, "There are certainly indications" that Pakistani intelligence were supporting Al Qa'eda and its "Taliban" supporters in Pakistan and Afghanistan: "Fundamentally that's one of the things that have to change."

But how does Washington make that change? In the case of Afghanistan, which is not-so-sovereign-a-country, the US can almost openly manoeuvre to push aside President Hamid Karzai. With Pakistan, especially after the symbolism of the recent Long March and memories of the "democratic" martyrdom of Benazir Bhutto, the Obama Administration has to be more careful about imposing an American solution.

Of course, the President made no reference to this specific challenge yesterday. The problem is that this may not be discretion but a general befuddlement over how to move around a weak President Zardari and get the Pakistani military to be "good" and move against not only Al Qa'eda and local groups but also elements within the Islamabad power structure.

3. THE HOLE IN THE MIDDLE

The US doesn’t want to get out of Afghanistan, at least not in the near-future, so it needs a “reliable” political centre to hold together its strategy. And that is precisely what it does not have.

Washington may not have an easy solution, apart from the image of "Al Qa'eda", for the political conundrums in Pakistan. But at least Islamabad is getting attention, albeit through well-placed conversations with the press. Kabul is missing.

In the run-up to the Obama announcement, there had been talk of a political push to move aside President Karzai. That disappeared yesterday. Instead, the President indicated that the US was going to take the battle to the countryside with the vaunted fusion of "hard power" and "soft power" promoted by good liberal interventionists in recent years (the 400+ contributors to the Princeton Project on National Security, take a bow). Beat up the bad guys, train Afghan security, build up the villages, burn down the poppy fields and break up the drugs factories.

It's a big issue, of course, whether that Take It to the Villages strategy is viable. It is equally important to notice the political vacuum behind Obama's supposed comprehensive approach. We're still waiting for more on indications that the US will be talking to a variety of local elements, including "former Taliban".

And I'm waiting for the penny to drop that the Obama Administration may be trying to bypass the central Government in Kabul, the one promoted by the US for 7+ years, because it has no faith in it. That is the real significance of the symbolic fluff that Obama and Co. are moving away from a supposed "democracy promotion" of the Bush years.

4. THE UNMISTAKBLE HEAVINESS OF BREATH-HOLDING

Simon Toner, responding to our posts yesterday, offered the important analysis that Obama and his rhetoric might be implementing a sophisticated strategy in which Washington was not linking "Al Qa'eda" to local Afghan and Pakistani groups but, through the invocation of terrorism, separating it from "insurgents". Doing so, the US could then engage with the variety of local movements to search for political settlements.

In theory, that could be a promising approach. Yet even if it is pursued, I'm holding my breath over the challenge: how will the US be working, not with former/current foes, but with current/former allies? Where is the political centre (location, not ideology) of Kabul and Islamabad in this Obama grand plan?

As good as I am at holding my breath, I'm not sure I can last for the time Washington will take to address that riddle.

Two-Step Analysis of Mr Obama's War Plan: Step One in Pakistan

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The spin is in. The allies (NATO) and no-longer-allies (Afghan President Hamid Karzai, in a phone call from Barack Obama) have been briefed. So today, in time for Hillary Clinton's showcase conference on Afghanistan at The Hague and the NATO summit over the next two weeks, the grand Obama strategy on Pakistan and Afghanistan will be unveiled.

STEP 1. TO THE CORE IN PAKISTAN

That's right. All the early-Administration scrapping over Afghanistan --- how many troops? nation-building or no nation-buiding? Karzai or no Karzai? --- is still significant but it's not the priority in this plan.

"One official" fed the line to CNN: "Disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaeda and destroy the safe haven that has developed in Pakistan and prevent it from rebuilding in Afghanistan."

Destroy in Pakistan first means the US stops "al Qaeda" in Afghanistan later.

Forget for the moment the obvious: "al Qaeda" in Afghanistan is not the primary challenge (my own suspicion is that's a spectral excuse). Give the benefit of the doubt to the Administration: attention to the safe havens is occuring because they are underpinning the Afghan insurgency --- it is not occurring as a diversion/alternative to the failure of the American political-economic-military approach in Afghanistan.

How will the destruction of these safe havens, presumably by an expansion of US airstrikes and pressure on the Pakistani military to up its ground operations, lead to stability in Pakistan?

The Administration's answer will be the accompanying increase in economic aid, tripling to $1.5 billion per year. Yet that in itself ignores the obvious: Pakistan has been receiving big, big bundles of American cash since September 2001? Given past allegations that US economic aid has been swallowed up by corruption and mis-expenditure, that it has been diverted to other projects unrelated to the "War on Terror", that the current Government of Pakistan is led by a President who has been convicted elsewhere for financial impropriety (and charged with the crime in his own country), how does this version of the Obama "stimulus package" differ from those over the last seven-plus years?

And while we're raising an eyebrow over the easy narrative of a new US-Pakistan co-operation (We Bomb; You Build), how does this square with Thursday's story from the New York Times?

The Taliban’s widening campaign in southern Afghanistan is made possible in part by direct support from operatives in Pakistan’s military intelligence agency, despite Pakistani government promises to sever ties to militant groups fighting in Afghanistan, according to American government officials.

The support consists of money, military supplies and strategic planning guidance to Taliban commanders who are gearing up to confront the international force in Afghanistan that will soon include some 17,000 American reinforcements.

Support for the Taliban, as well as other militant groups, is coordinated by operatives inside the shadowy S Wing of Pakistan’s spy service, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, the officials said. There is even evidence that ISI operatives meet regularly with Taliban commanders to discuss whether to intensify or scale back violence before the Afghan elections.

So somehow the US has to turn the "good" elements in the Pakistani Government against the "rogue" elements in the ISI. That lead, however, cannot come from President Asif Ali Zardari, who has effectively been sidelined both by Washington and by his internal travails. Another New York Times story tipped off the US head-scratching over a political solution:

Now, as the Obama administration completes its review of strategy toward the region this week, his sudden ascent has raised an urgent question: Can [Nawaz] Sharif, 59, a populist politician close to Islamic parties, be a reliable partner? Or will he use his popular support to blunt the military’s already fitful campaign against the insurgency of the Taliban and Al Qaeda?

Instead of working through this complex political equation, the US option will probably be to find its "good" elements in the Pakistani military, who may happen to benefit from the increased American aid. The Pakistani military commander, General Ashfaq Pervez Kiani, has been across the world from Washington to Kabul to Islamabad in consultations with US officials, and it is notable that CIA Director Leon Panetta was in Pakistan last Sunday for further talks.

The same General, however, has not been on board publicly with an offensive against the "safe havens", and the Pakistani Army in its limited operations in recent months has been firmly rebuffed by local forces. The default position has been a tacit acceptance of the US aerial assault, even though that has not brought a marked change in the political situation. To the contrary, the autonomy of local leaders, symbolised by the declaration of sharia law, has increased.

Could the Obama Administration really be pushing for a tacit strategic takeover by the Pakistani military? In exchange for bowing to the US demands to take a more aggressive approach to the "safe havens" in the northwest provinces and to curb the ISI, the "good" allies would get a healthy cut of US assistance and an enhanced internal power.