3:35AM
Beginning to see how far we'll end up going on AFPAK
Saturday, March 21, 2009 at 3:35AM FRONT PAGE: "U.S. Weighs Taliban Strike In Pakistan," by David E. Sanger and Eric Schmitt, New York Times, 18 March 2009.
Now we're thinking about strikes in Baluchistan, or southern Pakistan, because our success in strikes in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas are pushing Taliban in that direction to a certain extent.
Absent the patent self-destructiveness on trade, I would be far more likely to support this, but the more Obama engages in protectionism while saying otherwise, the more I see the world's other great powers leaving America to hang alone as we accumulate a larger conflict zone in Pakistan.
We may not see the connections, but they will.
Reader Comments (2)
This is a question, not an answer... am I missing something that is in front of me?
"His core decision may be whether to scale back American ambitions there to simply assure it does not become a sanctuary for terrorists. “We are taking this back to a fundamental question,” a senior diplomat involved in the discussions said. “Can you ever get a central government in Afghanistan to a point where it can exercise control over the country? That was the problem Bush never really confronted.” "
Taliban flee to Baluchistan, we follow, what's to keep them from fleeing elsewhere? As long as they can run farther than we can, we're stuck at some point limiting our actions to the territory we have the resources to pacify and develop. If that territory doesn't include southern Afghanistan or northern Pakistan, we may have to suggest either a federal model that allows those uncontrollable areas some autonomy or an out-and-out secession of those areas from their parent countries.