"'PAKISTAN FIRST" MAY NOT PLEASE

       One of the ideas the Obama administration is considering in response to the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan reportedly is called "Pakistan First". Championed by Vice President Joe Biden, the idea is to focus US efforts on attacking al-Qaeda targets in Pakistan's tribal areas with drones or special forces, while backing the government's efforts to pacify and develop the lawless areas where al-Qaeda and the Taleban are based. The battle against the Taleban, meanwhile, would be put on the back burner.
       "Pakistan First" would excuse President Obama from having to anger his political base by dispatching the additional US troops that his military commanders say are needed to stop the Taleban's resurgence in Afghanistan. It would nominally focus US efforts on a nuclear-armed country that is of far greater strategic importance.
       Funny, then, that Pakistan's government doesn't think much of the idea. Last Tuesdsay, Pakistani foreign Minister shah Mahmood Qureshi said withour reservation that Taleban
       advances in Afghanistan were a mortal threat to his country. "We see Mullah Omar," the leader of the Afghan Taeban, "as a serious threat. If the likes of Omar take over in Afghanistan, it will have serious inplllications for Pakistan," Qureshi said. "They have a larger agenda, and the first to be affected by that agenda is Pakistan... it will have implications on Pakistan and it will have implications on the region."
       Like a couple 's senior European leaders who visited Washingto last week, Qureshi expressed a diplomatic version of dismay at Obama's public wavering on fighting the Taleban, "If that is going to happen, why have we stuck our necks out?" he said. "Why did Benazir die? Benazir Bahtto, the former leader of the ruling Pakistan People's Party, was assassinated after she campaigned in favour of a decisiver moved by Pakistan to take on the Taleban- something the government and armay declined to do until this year. Elements of the military or its intelligence service may still quietly support some Taleban groups; if the US appears to retreat, those forces will be strengthened - at the expense of the pro-Western civilian government.
       Quareshi declined to express an opinion about the deployment of more US troops to southern Afghanistan, saying he was not a military expert. But he drew a contrast between Nato's operations in the south and Pakistan's operations against the Taleban this year. "Your troops went in and cleared the area. But once you came out, the Taleban came back in," he said. "What we do is, we go in, and we clear and we hold. When you do that, it requires more contact. It requires more resources. And it means more casualties."
       Qureshi was talking about Pakistan, but he was also describing the "counter-insurgency" strategy for Afghanistan that Obama embraced last March and backed until the general he appointed determined it would require more troops. It seems pretty clear that if Obama decides to abandon counter-insurgency in the name of something called "Pakistan First", America's best allies in Pakistan won't be happy.