The dance with Pakistan

ARTICLE: U.S. Steps Up Unilateral Strikes in Pakistan, By Robin Wright and Joby Warrick, Washington Post, March 27, 2008; Page A01

Scary combination: we step up unilateral strikes inside another nation because we fear their new leadership will back away from such commitments. Does that sound sustainable to you?

Comments

[William R. Cumming]

Is my memory failing or do Cambodia and Lao ring a bell? What does Congress say about this development? Is there authority for these actions in the Congressional resolutions and UN actions authorizing or ratifying US actions in Afghanistan and Iraq? Is this the Pentagon's New Map?

[Dirk]

Dr Barnett. Don't you think its past time we stopped pretending that the tribal areas belong to a soverign nation?

[Ted O'Connor]

Congress? Congress? That sounds vaguely familiar. Did we not have something called congress in our past? I am sure we did. Well, we don't need it now anyway. We have unmanned drones instead.

[Hans Suter]

No, it does not.

[Louis Heberlein]

Sometimes the silence of a Democratic Congress on a Republican Executive issue speaks volumes.

[farhad]

it seems,before Bush dances out of the office,he will have to do therealigment dance.of course,you can't have to much hope that he won't stumble,even though his trainer is Kissenger.the hard reality is so,that he won't have a choice but try to do the right dance,thepragmatic one,the big dance of his presidency;to engage Iran. thatis the one dance which will satisfy the Iranian regional power interest,and elimnate a lot of Bush's problems in the middle east.theIranian people of course don't like this regime,but thier independence come first.

[Michael]

Pakistan's leaders have more to lose than we do. They may be persuadable to provide at least a fig leaf (say, leadership of a joint operation where we provide much of the firepower and expertise). If not . . .

At some point, the leaders of the US, Pakistan, Afganistan and the Waziri Pashtun tribes on both sides of the Durand line need to sit down in the same place and refuse to leave until a deal is hashed out. A deal no-one may be too pleased with.

[vinit joshi]

How does this differ from what obama wants to do?