Look, I'm just a reader -- no relevant policy experience, no credentials, but this line from Col. Lynch's post struck me as quite possibly wrong:

"Now is the time to press Pak MIL-ISI hard on its duplicity, on their need for a new narrative of Pakistan moving forward, and on our demands for cooperation in two immediate priorities: (1) Kill/capture Ayman al-Zawahiri and (2) Mounting pressure on the Afghan Taliban leadership to make it hard for them to regenerate losses suffered & suffering in Afghanistan."

Pakistan has three hole cards: its nuclear deterrent, which it will never give up or stop relying on, and two items related to the war: support for the Taliban and keeping al-Qaeda figures in its pocket. The killing of Bin laden both exposed he latter and also, perhaps paradoxically, made the last two even more valuable. To ask them to essentially give up their ability to string out the Afghan war and keep us guessing about senior al-Qaeda people is to ask them to atone for being caught hosting Bin Laden by shriving themselves of their bad ways. Well, I don't see Pakistan as a shriving kind of society. I think, since 1947, they are a dig-in-their-heels and stare down the outsiders kind of society. They got pretty clearly linked to the Mumbai attacks and didn't do a thing to change their ways.

The logic of Lynch and others seems to be that the facade of cooperation on the hunt for Bin laden was important to Pakistan, so the loss of it will cause them to bargain harder for our approval. I think it more likely they never really cared about the facade -- as long as they have a shred of deniability, they'll shrug, maybe fire a few scapegoats, and go on. What is important is having assets -- they probably saw Bin Laden as one, to be traded or used at some future point, and probably still see Zawahiri as another. They almost certainly see the Taliban as another -- a useful and powerful tool to keep themselves in the game in Afghanistan. To surrender those two assets would be unilateral disarmament. I think if anything they'll be inclined to double down and increase thinly-disguised support for the Taliban precisely because they calculate America won't call their bluff. (just as they're apparently increasing their nuke stockpile in the face of any realistic utility for more bombs -- see http://krepon.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/3113/pakistans-nuclear-requirements ).

I like a lot of what Col. Lynch has to say, but like others I am troubled by the conclusion. The two "immediate priorities" he lists are valid, and duly labeled immediate, i.e. short term.

What I still see missing is some sense of a Grand Strategy (not Col. Lynch's fault, obviously). If this is truly an inflection point useful for changing Pakistan's direction, then where would we like them to go?

And I still don't see Pakistan fundamentally changing its orientation unless India is on board. What are we doing about that?

The issue I have with Lynch’s view is that it’s sounds more like a short term "policy" contingent upon however long we are in Afghanistan directed toward counter-terrorism as opposed to a long term "strategic" framework involving the bigger picture that includes Pakistan's place in the overall global fight against terrorism.

>Indeed, we've now got a set of processes and frameworks that enable us a window into Pakistan that can be game-changing -- but not if Pakistan's military-intelligence leadership won't make the decision to change. Now is the time to press PakMIL-ISI hard on its duplicity, ...

Col. Lynch does not suggest any actionable items to make this change happen. My take is that cutting aid immediately is the best approach to force them to change. Money is a huge motivator for the Pak military and political leadership, especially since much of it is siphoned off - nothing like personal greed to make things happen.

If that does not change them, follow it up with declaring them as a State Sponsor of Terrorism, and treat them like Iran and North Korea, the table they should be sitting at anyway.

Now that Osama bin Laden has been found to be being sheltered so close to the heart of Pakistani government, foreign policy establishment in U. S. is in the full swing to once again rescue Pakistan from getting a black eye over it.

It does NOT matter to these Pakistani apologists that Islamabad has been caught with their pants down umpteen times.

Pakistan has been able to get away with all the crimes against U. S. and still come out smelling roses because
Pakistani government has U. S. by the throat. US can NOT use its aid leverage to force Pakistan to stop supporting terrorist groups who kill US/NATO troops in Afghanistan day in and day out because US needs Pakistan’s help in ferrying supplies to those very US/NATO troops.

Furthermore Pakistan has spread a biggest malarkey with U. S. connivance that ’nuclear weapons are in danger of falling in the hands of Islamic fundamentalists if Pakistani government collapses’.

How can Pakistan be in danger of falling to the Islamic fundamentalists if Pakistani Army and ISI are SPONSORING those very Islamic fundamentalists led by Osama bin Laden, Haqqani, Mullah Omar and Hafiz Saeed as reported by ambassador Patterson?

Previous US ambassador Anne Patterson to Pakistan, wrote in a secret review in 2009 that ‘Pakistan's Army and ISI are covertly SPONSORING four militant groups - Haqqani‘s HQN, Mullah Omar‘s QST, Al Qaeda and LeT - and will not abandon them for any amount of US money‘, as diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks show.

No matter how Hillary Clinton spins it, ambassador Patterson had NO reason to mislead her own State Department and U. S. government.

US just keeps deliberately ignoring Taliban’s Pakistani connections in fueling and sustaining Afghan insurgency as reported by Matt Waldman in ‘The sun in the sky‘ on 6/13/2010, corroborated by WikiLeaks leaks on 7/25/2010 and then further corroborated by Chris Alexander, Canadian ambassador to Afghanistan from 2003 to 2005 and Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Afghanistan from 2005 until 2009 in his article on 7/30/2010 titled ‘The huge scale of Pakistan‘s complicity‘.

Let us see if U. S. once again allows Pakistan to get away with a whitewash and a wink and a nod with few more billions in aid to boot after finding out that Osama bin Laden was sheltered so close to the heart of Pakistani government.

He's happy to see America help India secure Pakistan's nuclear weapons if the Pakistanis don't cooperate?

If Iraq was a bad idea, this is a massive brain hemorrhage-vegetable state stupidity.

I used a word search to confirm that no form of 'pashtun' was used in Col. Lynch's essay on resetting US policy, in their region, where they once ruled.

I take issue with Col. Lynch's opening salvo, that Pakistan seeks/requires equality with India. My reading leads me to believe that's like saying that Carl Rove is seeking equality for his ambitions. If equality is a step in the direction of winning, then equality is desired, but not the end-state.

The Islamic Republic of Pakistan ('land of the pure') self defines as a moslem land. The ruling elites dispossessed in 1949 feel that their kind of Moslems were the rightful heirs to rule India, and seek redress on every level. The political religion of Mohammed holds that non-moslems ruling over moslems is just wrong, a temporary condition, inshallah. Islamabad wants to rule Kashmir, Bangladesh, and more.

I say this without overt Beckish prejudice or hatred, or carrying water for New Delhi. The Indians for their part are ruled by Nehru's Hindu party, which has hijacked Ghandi's name to become a nuclear security state. They include a substantial faction that feels they should have 'finished' the islamists in '49, or after the Bangladesh partition, before the subcontinent war became nuclear-ized, a sub-set of global nuclear strategic competition.

I'm the son of a Baptist sect which derives from a judaic tradition that holds much the same view; that we are 'the chosen', and that after much suffering we will be restored to power by the almighty. What goes round comes round.

but amen to getting along.

Most religions are in favor of tolerance, as long as they're in the minority. As you know Don, the christian minorities tend to and immigrate, in Iraq, Palestine, Egyptian troubles. Here in San Diego county we have a burgeoning Iraqi/arab christian population that's been building for decades. Ironically, my neocon congressman's family (Issa) was lebanese .

I used to work for the grandson of an India missionary who had an ali baba sword over the desk. Grandpa had been marked for killing with that sword by one zealot faction, when he loaned the mission car to the 'other'. Neither side could tolerate the other to have a powerful ally providing use of a motorcar.