The United States is destabilizing Afghanistan -- and Pakistan!

Posted By Thomas E. Ricks Friday, January 23, 2009 - 5:26 PM Share

That's the view from the other end of the telescope. The governor of Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province says that Afghanistan is the problem, not his country, and that it is the Americans who are the threat in Afghanistan. Pay no attention to what you may have heard about Taliban offensives in Swat and al Qaeda hanging out in the autonomous tribal area on the border, advises Gov. Owais Ahmad Ghani:

We are successfully moving forward to handle the law and order problem in certain areas of the province."

Good luck with this guy, Ambassador Holbrooke!

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WALKING WOUNDED

8:19 PM ET

January 24, 2009

Audacity of hope, with missiles

Seen thru either end of the telescope, we certainly have been trying to look and act threatening on the Afghan-Paki borderlands. If the new Washington was OK with the current path towards 'stability' in Pashtunistan, we wouldn't be sending more of our overtasked (but combat hardened!) troops in to change things.

Today's news, of the 44th Presidency's first cross-border air strike into Pakistan, starts to answer Mr. Rick's earlier question: 'Which black ops will be extended by Team Obama?' Predator strikes into the tribal areas are no surprise. They're about as secret as our sabotage campaign against Iran. But it must be deniable, so declared. Therefore it undeniably requires Obama's executive authorization, for officers in Nevada to order a Predator to kill enemy and civilians in Pakistan. We are a nation of laws and deniability.

The Constitution on steroids produces indigestible war logic? Counter that side-effect with weapons grade mil-spec prozac. In time, Dems won't mind the cognitive dyspepsia so much. It worked for conservatives, with the war deficits.

VP Biden's pre-inauguration trip started in Pakistan, not Iraq, which is a clue on war-peace priorities. The surviving press focussed on the economy, budget, and a First Dog. Our incoming message masters seem to have kept the lid on what issues Biden addressed, and what was decided. Three former Senators in executive positions, no longer in the fact-finding business. Now they create the facts, send our kinetic message into Pashtun villages.

Lethal force on both sides of the border was the official Obama campaign position. But that was just talk. We're now set on a course to shift a combat force of 30,000 from the old central front, to the new one, before the 15 month 'surge' tours in Iraq are over.

The US military strategy failed the primary mission in 2002: to make combat sufficiently unattractive to the ISI, tribes and Taliban, and therefore unnecesary. In 2007-8, we ramped up W's economy of force mission, reflecting a deteriorating position.

Obama's war starts about where LBJ was after the glorious 1965 inauguration, or Bush in 2005. We're now shifting into plan C. As much as it takes, for as long as we can borrow to pay for it. Supplement interdiction with more air strikes, as needed. The new smart power still uses smart bombs. So America can (still) feel safe.

With 7 years of this war now behind us, can we finally remember one lesson from 1965? The war is not getting better, as long as it's escal... uh, getting bigger. In the language of this new century, more war may be necessary, but it's not sufficient. We don't need to wait until 1968 to try something else.

Obama to Petraeus to McKiernan to Holbrooke to Clinton: What else have you got? We need a secret plan to end this war, before 2012.