Word: pakistan
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...policy review was ordered up - this one conducted by Bruce Riedel, a scholar at the Brookings Institution. The Riedel review won't be done until the end of March, but it has already achieved some clarity about U.S. goals and priorities: "Afghanistan pales in comparison to the problems in Pakistan," said an official familiar with Riedel's thinking. "Our primary goal has to be to shut down the al-Qaeda and Taliban safe havens on the Pakistan side of the border. If that can be accomplished, then the insurgency in Afghanistan becomes manageable...
...Through sheer brutality, the British were able to manage the area - now called Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province - but never quite subdue it. The chances of subduing it today are even more remote. "Obviously, we're not going to invade Pakistan," said a senior member of the Riedel review. "We have to convince the Pakistanis to do the job. But we haven't had much luck with that in the past." In fact, the Pakistani army and Inter-Services Intelligence agency have supported the Taliban as a counterforce against India's influence in Afghanistan, just as they supported jihadi...
...What to do? Actually, there's a consensus within the Obama Administration about how to approach the Pakistan part of the problem. The policy might be described as comprehensive diplomacy accompanied by lots of money. The diplomatic task is to nudge India and Pakistan, who nearly came to an agreement in their eternal Kashmir dispute in 2007, toward a lessening of tensions in the hope that the Pakistani army will turn to the struggle against al-Qaeda and the Taliban...
...money would come in a massive economic-aid package, the Kerry-Lugar bill, which would send $1.5 billion to Pakistan for each of the next five years - although how that aid would be distributed, a crucial question given Pakistan's rampant corruption, has yet to be determined. Military aid to Pakistan will continue as well, but with more strings and supervision than during the Bush Administration. "We have to re-establish close personal relationships with the army," said a senior member of the National Security Council, who was involved in an intense series of meetings with the Pakistani military leadership...
...what about Afghanistan? It is, once again, a sideshow, given the focus on Pakistan - but it is also where Obama's most important decision will be made: To escalate or not? The military is in favor of an Afghan surge to protect the entire population in the provinces affected by the Taliban insurgency. That could mean another 15,000 troops, or more, on top of the 17,000 already sent. It might even succeed; the Afghan people are terrified by the Taliban, but they do want law and order - which the corrupt Karzai government has failed to provide and Petraeus...