The news from the Afghanistan and Pakistan continues to be dire.  This weekend saw the heaviest cross-border assault by the Taliban on Pakistan troops in months.  Meanwhile the news regarding corruption, opium production and the security of supply routes into Afghanistan continues to be negative.  There is no question that with the threat of an Al Qaeda safehaven on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and the danger of an unstable Pakistan nuclear state, this region will be one of the centers of attention of a next administration.  As Chairman of the Joints Chiefs Admiral Mullen explained yesterday on 60 Minutes, "Clearly Pakistan is equal, if not more important than any other country, right now because of the challenges that we have."  

It is critical that we have a comprehensive strategy for addressing the situation.  Beyond tackling pure security concerns, the U.S. must begin a comprehensive regional approach that deals with issues regarding Pakistan, India and Iran.  Moreover, our efforts in Afghanistan must move beyond strictly security by expanding good governance and reducing corruption, dealing with the world's largest opium trade with established ties to the insurgency, improving reconstruction and development initiatives.  All of these options should be considered carefully, positives and negatives should be weighed and a new strategy with clear and achievable goals should be decided on before any major troop commitments are made.

The Afghanistan-Pakistan region remains a major challenge.  This weekend saw the heaviest cross-border assault by the Taliban on Pakistani troops in months.  "Hundreds of Taliban militants poured into northwestern Pakistan in a large frontal attack on a paramilitary base late Saturday and Sunday that left at least 40 militants and 6 Pakistani soldiers dead, according to Pakistani security officials. . . And in a reversal of usual patterns, it involved a large number of Taliban forces from Afghanistan attacking into Pakistan, signaling coordination among militants on both sides of the border."  The troubled Afghan-Pakistan border is also causing disruption in US supply lines.  The issue of supply lines is of "growing urgency because of intensifying attacks by pro-Taliban guerrillas on the mountain pass, which links Pakistan and Afghanistan and is the main supply route the soldiers use."  NATO diplomats are concluding efforts to set up "new routes for U.S. and NATO military supplies that will likely pass through Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan."  The Washington Post also reports today on the growing divide between rich and poor in Afghanistan due to corruption.  "Similar startling contrasts abound across the Afghan capital. Children with pinched faces beg near the mansions of a tiny elite enriched by foreign aid and official corruption. Hundreds of tattered men gather at dawn outside a glittering new office building to compete for 50-cent jobs hauling construction debris."  Another factor in the deteriorating situation in is the link between the insurgency and opium production.  A recent UNODC report shows that "Most of the opium cultivation was confined to the south and the west, which is dominated by insurgency and organized criminal networks. This corresponds to the sharper polarization of the security situation between the lawless south and the relatively stable north. Hilmand still remains the dominant opium cultivating province (103,500 ha) followed by Kandahar, Uruzgan, Farah and Nimroz." [Washington Post, 1/12/08. NY Times, 1/12/09.AP, 1/9/09. UNODC, 11/27/08]

The US needs to focus on Afghanistan-Pakistan region and part of that increased focus will be more troops.  While the Bush presidency was defined by the failure in Iraq, Afghanistan and its increasingly volatile neighbor, Pakistan, is seen by experts at the highest level as a worrisome.  On CBS's 60 Minutes Admiral Michael Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the highest ranking military position and top military advisor to the president, "pressed on to that other war, the one in Afghanistan, the one that worries him most."  Mullen also said that "Clearly Pakistan is equal, if not more important than any other country, right now because of the challenges that we have...The sophistication of the attacks that are coming from the safe havens into Afghanistan have gone up dramatically."   Mullen acknowledged that part of the greater focus will be the shift of more troops to the region.  [CBS, 1/11/09.]

Afghanistan needs a comprehensive strategy that expands beyond a discussion on troop levels.  So far the debate on Afghanistan has focused on the Pentagon's announcement that an additional 20,000 troops will deploy to the country over the course of this year to address deteriorating security.  But as the events of the last several weeks have made clear, troop deployments can only be one facet of a broader strategy to stabilize the country.  Last November, the Washington Post reported that "[C]onversations with several Obama advisers and a number of senior military strategists both before and since last Tuesday's election reveal a shared sense that the Afghan effort under the Bush administration has been hampered by ideological and diplomatic constraints and an unrealistic commitment to the goal of building a modern democracy -- rather than a stable nation that rejects al-Qaeda and Islamist extremism and does not threaten U.S. interests."   Beyond tackling pure security concerns, the U.S. can make a clear break with the failed Bush approach by expanding good governance and reducing corruption, dealing with the world's largest opium trade with established ties to the insurgency, improving reconstruction and development initiatives, and engaging in regional diplomacy to draw Afghanistan's neighbors, especially Pakistan, into a solution.  All of these options should be considered carefully, positives and negatives should be weighed and a new strategy with clear and achievable goals should be decided on before any major troop commitments are made. [NY Times, 12/11/08. Washington Post, 11/11/08. NSN, 11/12/08]