Obama To Pakistan: Your Dithering Is Undermining My Dithering

The Times reports that the pot has harsh words for the kettle:

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is stepping up pressure on Pakistan to expand and reorient its fight against the Taliban and Al Qaeda, warning that failing to do so would undercut the new strategy and troop increase for Afghanistan that President Obama is preparing to approve, American officials say.

Pakstan has a subtle concern:

For their part, Pakistani officials have told the Americans that they harbor two deep fears about Mr. Obama’s new strategy: that the United States will add too many troops on the Afghan side of the border, and that the American effort will end too soon.

Their first concern, described by officials on both sides of the recent discussions, is that if Mr. Obama commits an additional 30,000 or more troops, it will inevitably push more Taliban fighters across the border into Pakistani territory and complicate the South Waziristan offensive.

Every time Mr. Obama declares that the United States will not have an “open-ended” military commitment in Afghanistan, he fuels a second concern of the powerful Pakistani military and intelligence establishment, which believes the United States commitment is fleeting.

It is a concern that some of them say justifies Pakistan’s continuing ties to the militants who fight American troops in Afghanistan.

In other words, Obama will commit 30,000 new troops to Afghanistan, the Taliban will hide out across the Pakistani border, and Obama will declare victory and leave.  What are the odds?

The public show of indecision will have consequences:

“Whatever we do — put in more troops or put in fewer troops — they’ll freak out,” said an American intelligence officer who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid jeopardizing his relations with Pakistani officials. But the intelligence officer acknowledged that the long-term security picture and the American commitment in Afghanistan were still unclear. “Look, if I were in Pakistan, I’d be hedging my bets, too,” the officer said. “We need to be much more convincing that we have a better game plan.”

Comments

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Could we just have a running category for "Obama's an idiot part #n"?

[Neo]

In many wayss, Obama current strategy with Afghanistan is looking more and more like the Bush strategy in regard to the Palestinians (a strategy that Obama didn't like, at least publicly).

[bgates]

We need to be much more convincing that we have a better game plan

the pot has harsh words for the kettle

Racist.

[bgates]

Charlie, do you think TypePad could handle the double precision numbers that would require?

[daddy]

"Could we just have a running category for "Obama's an idiot part #n"?"

I still think we ought to start calling Air Force 1 "The Turnip Truck", as it seems that every country Obama lands in, he steps off the plane and shortly thereafter say's something as blindingly stupid as somebody who just fell off the Turnip Truck.

[Dave (in MA)]

Brave to go with the pot/kettle analogy for Ø.

[hit and run]

Dave:
Brave to go with the pot/kettle analogy for Ø.

This is exactly the kind of rhetoric that justified the 1989 Germans not to be able to imagine a 2009 black American president. That and the fact that the guys on the dollar bills looked nothing like Obama.

[sbw]

Hit: That and the fact that the guys on the dollar bills looked nothing like Obama.

Thank goodness. Or the cinch-strapped other, either.

And that is not a racist remark. People that are attractive or hard to look at come in any hue.

[narciso]

The 'credentialed moron' in this piece, seems to take Awlaki at face value, in the LUN

[RELIAPUNDIT]

DON'T FORGET KARZAI'S DITHERING ON ANTI-CORRUPTION...

[srp]

The Ditherer Of The United States has spoken! All hail DOTUS!

[Thomas Esmond Knox]

Imagine how a Pakistani or an Afghani feels when Bill Clinton's wife accuses them of dishonesty.

Imagine what they think.

[bad]

All hail DOTUS!

I prefer DOOFUS.....