Terrorist attacks and Taliban repositioning, using smarter, more sophisticated tactics, have figured prominently in the campaigns by Islamists to disrupt the November 7 Afghan election and to destabilize the Pakistani government, which is mounting a serious sustained offensive in South Waziristan against Taliban strongholds.
Afghanistan. The Afghan election authorities have rejected a UN proposal for the November 7 election re-run. Strategic analyst Andrew C. Bacevich calls for setting strategy first, before committing more troops in Afghanistan. Historian Walter Russell Mead argues that dealing with bad guys--including drug lords--may be necessary to prevail in Afghanistan. Washington Post pundit David Ignatius reports on his latest visit there and says we must try to make the McChrystal strategy work.
Pakistan. SecState Hillary Clinton expressed disbelief speaking to Pakistani audiences, concerning lack of cooperation in a war effort that is is, she said, Pakistan's parallel interest (with the US) to win. The Washington Post reports:
"I find it hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are and couldn't get them if they really wanted to," she told a group of newspaper editors during a meeting in Lahore.
"Maybe they are not 'get-at-able'. I don't know," she said.
Clinton's pointed remark was the first public gripe on a trip aimed at turning around a U.S.-Pakistan relationship under serious strain, but bound in the struggle against religious extremism.
"I am more than willing to hear every complaint about the United States," Clinton said, ""but this is a two way street.
"If we are going to have a mature partnership where we work together" then "there are issues that not just the United States but others have with your government and with your military security establishment."
Bottom Line. It remains in America's strategic interest to prevent Islamist triumph in both countries. But at times, one is tempted to throw up one's hands, and fall back on the password used by the the robbers in "The Hot Rock" (a 1972 Robert Redford - George Segal caper flick): "Afghanistan Bananistan." We are trying to create stable and less corrupt governance in a singularly unpromising area. But for now try we must.
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