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Another Afghan counterfactual
President Obama has reportedly ruled out a major reduction in U.S. forces in Afghanistan, and is still mulling over the military's request for more troops. The LA Times says he's looking for "middle ground" here, which would be consistent with Obama's decision-making style. In this case, however, it's the worst of a set of bad options. If things eventually go south (as I believe they will), he'll get blamed for not giving the commanders enough to do the job and for incurring additional costs to no good purpose. Yet this approach also means he won't the credit for taking a bold decision to cut our losses and get out. Does the phrase "stalemate machine" ring any bells?
Meanwhile, I've been reading the unclassified version of McChrystal report over the last few days, and it's reinforcing my doubts. It's admirably honest about the magnitude of the task, but after describing all the reasons why winning will be very difficult, it makes a rather breathtaking leap to the conclusion that a different strategy and adequate resources can turn things around (while prudently warning that "no strategy can guarantee success").
This got me thinking.
Imagine that the situation in Afghanistan were exactly what it is today -- a corrupt government in Kabul with dubious legitimacy, the Taliban gaining strength, al Qaeda's leaders still hiding out in northwest Pakistan, etc. -- except that the U.S. military wasn't there. And then ask yourself: would you be in favor of sending 100,000 or so American soldiers to fight and die there?
My views on this subject are clear, so feel free to discount what follows. But I doubt we would be having a serious debate about sending a large number of troops to Afghanistan if we weren't there already. Instead, we would be treating Afghanistan the same way we treat most failed states. We'd express our concern, offer modest amounts of humanitarian assistance, we'd let the U.N. do its best, and if we thought al Qaeda was operating there, we'd go after them with special forces and Predators or other military assets. Just look at how we are currently dealing with Somalia or Yemen or Sudan and you get an idea of how we would be dealing with Afghanistan if were we not there already.
And notice that the scenario I've posited is actually more favorable than the one we are actually in. In this counterfactual, Kabul is losing on its own, whereas in reality, Kabul is losing even though there are 100,000 or so foreign troops already trying to help, at a cost that far exceeds the entire GDP of the country. At this point, nobody should be under no illusions about how hard this really is.
Of course, one can argue that the simple fact that we are already there fundamentally alters the strategic calculus. We wouldn't intervene if we were starting from scratch today, but some will say that allowing ourselves to be defeated by the Taliban will have disastrous effects on our reputation and encourage bin Laden & Co. to believe they are winning.
Robert Kaplan takes this line in an op-ed in today's New York Times, arguing that "an ignominious withdrawal from Afghanistan is precisely what would lead to our decline, by demoralizing our military, signaling to our friends worldwide that we cannot be counted on and demonstrating that our enemies have greater resolve than we do. That is why we have no choice in Afghanistan but to add troops and continue to fight."
This is an familiar line of argument, of course, even though the best scholarly studies of reputation and credibility have found that past behavior doesn't have much effect on future credibility. Be that as it may, one could just as easily argue that U.S. credibility will be damaged far more if we squander another trillion dollars in Afghanistan and end up with a degraded and demoralized military and a population that is truly sick of overseas involvements.
Nonetheless, the main thrust of Kaplan's piece is well worth pondering. He points out that while the United States is doing the heavy lifting in Afghanistan, the chief beneficiaries of success will be China (and to a lesser extent Russia and India). He notes that past empires declined "by allowing others to take advantage of its own exertions." And his conclusion is right on the money: "history suggests that over time we can more easily preserve our standing in the world by using naval and airpower from a distance when intervening abroad. Afghanistan should be the very last place where we are a land-based meddler, caught up in internal Islamic conflict, helping the strategic ambitions of the Chinese and others."
Needless to say, that's not an argument for "seeking the middle ground." That's an argument for getting out as quickly and prudently as we can.
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Ummm...yes, the world would
Ummm...yes, the world would be different if 9/11 have never happened.
Another piece that is so idiotic I feel dumber for having read it.
Or you could look a little deeper
From The Economist:
Sunk costs: When what is done cannot be undone. Sunk costs are costs that have been incurred and cannot be reversed, for example, spending on ADVERTISING or researching a product idea. They can be a barrier to entry. If potential entrants would have to incur similar costs, which would not be recoverable if the entry failed, they may be scared off.
From Wikipedia
Sunk cost dilemma: Having to choose between continuing a project of uncertain prospects already involving considerable sunk costs, or discontinuing the project. Given this choice between the certain loss of the sunk costs when stopping the project versus possible – even if unlikely – long-term profitability when going on, policy makers tend to favour uncertain success over certain loss.
That NYT op-ed overstated
That NYT op-ed overstated China or other neighboring states' benefits if US won at last.
Also you ignored that US might win if more troops are devoted. The truth might be that the generals may put too much focus on the dark side of Af situation to cover himself, just in case. At the same time, he is asking for more resources because it can be won.
If US wins, there must be some strategic benefits, I am sure.
Define win
Put different undefined words, such as "plix" and "plixed", in place of "win" or "won" to see how ridiculous it is to use meaningless words.
Your last sentence is outright ridiculous. How can you be sure of something you can't describe?
colonial policy
Zjin is arguing that a successful colonial policy is possible. It will be, for a while, at great expense, at small reward. Go for it... since you have long ago lost all reason and moral sense.
Osama
Even if we step out of Afghanistan, we still have to nail Osama or at least a good chunk of al-Queda, sooner or later. It's possible that getting out and then getting back in (differently) is the right sequence, but my brow furrows...
Otherwise, al-Queda will hit us again, somewhere, sometime, and Walt and Obama get blamed for setting us up.
And getting out of Afghanistan is different from getting out of Pakistan, since the Islamists have their eye on Pakistani nukes.
And yes, if al-Queda hadn't attacked, we wouldn't be bothering the Taliban. Would that it were so.
The NYT op-ed paints an incomplete picture
The NYT op-ed paints an incomplete picture of China's impact on what happens in Afghanistan.
True, China will be better able to pursue its mining and commercial interests in an Afghanistan that is stable. But China has no interest in a stable Afghanistan in which US-NATO have military bases, and in which India has the upper hand vis-a-vis Pakistan, i.e., China is not interested in US-NATO victory in Afghanistan. Fortunately, China does not have any instrument for directly affecting the outcome in Afghanistan. Hence, China and its policies are almost irrelevant to what is going to unfold in Afghanistan.
Gates' recent comment
Gates' recent comment about how the Taliban will view themselves as having destroyed yet another superpower and increase power and recruits through that messaging is right on the money.
The events and consequences arising from that scenario would be disastrous.
Nice speculation
What are the events and consequences that would arise?
Nothing of consequence
OK first things first, the Taliban didn't destroy a superpower, it was pestered and bled out of the country by Mujahideen warlords, some of whom were financially backed by Gulf States and some by revolutionary Iran. They were armed by a joint CIA-ISI pipeline.
The Taliban were largely the orphaned children of Pashtun refugees who fled to Pakistan's NWFP and FATA to avoid the war. They were too young to have ousted the USSR. They came to power almost a decade later by ousting the very warlords that drove the Soviets out of Afghanistan.
As for consequences, the Taliban NEVER had any territorial ambitions outside of the confines of Afghanistan. One could reasonably argue that they may be MORE amenable to helping international terrorists after what was done to them by the world community post 9/11. But they themselves do not pose a threat to any of their neighbors - simply because Iran is too big, Russia would intervene directly to protect the 'Istans' if the Taliban ever managed to get passed the northern provinces, and Pakistan is where they get half of their recruits from. They and the Pakistani Taliban are distinct. They may help each other, but their territorial goals aren't the same.
The United States won't collapse simply because we withdraw troops from Afghanistan. It's a wholly false analogy. We aren't trying to impose our will on half of Europe like the USSR was. No one in the world is anywhere near competing with us in an arms race that's going to bankrupt us. And I wouldn't compare the current recession and bailouts as anything reaching the levels of Perestroika or Glasnost.
So while I respect Secretary Gates (Go Aggies!) and his analysis, I don't think it's worth worrying about. Yes a withdrawl may be seen as victory by radicals. But most of them have little to no way attacking the US and its interests in ways that can't be easily countered by us.
Worst case scenarios
I think people would be more comfertable in making rational choices if there was an open public discussion on the worst case scenario resulting from a draw down of forces.
The questions the President should be asking, and most likely already HAS asked are perhaps along these lines:
1. In what capacity do terrorists with international reach still exist in Afghanistan?
1-a. What capabilities do they have?
1-b. How are they being aided by the Taliban resurgency?
1-c. What operational tools do we have to curtail their capabilities?
2. What resources does the Taliban have?
2-a. Can the Taliban and its allies further destabilize the Karzai regime?
2-b. What level of support to they enjoy from the population?
2-c. From what sources are their recruits, arms and wealth derived?
2-d. Does the Taliban resurgence have operational support from any outside governments?
2-e. Do we posses the tools to either effectively curtail the Taliban, or to strenghten the Alliance Governemnt to withstand the Taliban onslaught?
3. To what extent can either of these foes be countered or contained without the presense of boots on the ground?
Perhaps the best VIABLE option is to settle for Kabul, Northern and Western Afghanistan to be governed by the Karzai regime. Thus satisfying Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Russia and India. And allowing for an effective stalemate and defacto dominance by the Taliban in Southern Afghanistan based around Qandahar. Thus allowing Pakistan to keep its sanity (the key to Chinese satisfaction), and Saudi and the Khaleej Sheikdoms to maintain their 'check' on Iranian ambitions.
If we forego largescale nation-building, the only answer to this problem is rigorous diplomacy and techincal deterrence (what the Bushies derogatorally called
'cruise-missile' diplomacy).
Not sure
I like the approach, but I think 2 makes the implicit assumption that a strengthened Taliban is a threat to the vital U.S. interests even when when we're not in Afghanistan.
For a different look, see this Reuters story:
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE5961UI20091007
Some of the statements Taliban, Sunni insurgents and other local Islamists are making sound very xenophobic to me. Naturally, this hurts us while we're there. But it also works against any foreign terrorists like al Qaeda. Kilcullen's Accidental Guerrilla theory describes a very fluid concept of "local." We're less local than al Qaeda to Pashto eyes, but that doesn't necessarily mean Arab extremists are going to fit right in if we leave.
At the very least, a thorough examination must examine how much of a threat the Taliban pose.
sorry
I put a reply at the bottom somewhere.
Triumvirate
"But I doubt we would be having a serious debate about sending a large number of troops to Afghanistan if we weren't there already there"
As Mr. Rumsfeld would say, "you couldn't talk about what you're talking about unless the army you had to go to war with is there."
Obama's seeking the mushy middle confirms to me that we have a triumvirate in the President's office and we all know who the suspect virs are.
I don't know
Please do tell.
CAPTCHA: Chng slaying
solution
Some of the causes that AQ is fight for are legitimate whereas their methods are wrong.
We SHOULD dump war criminal apartheid Israel.
This alone would go a long way towards curbing the source of terrorism.
We DO have problems in our foreign policy that need to be fixed. They SHOULD be fixed.
This can all be done without any troops.
read Victor Davis Hanson
at National Review Online's "The Corner" for some interesting analysis on Afghanistan. As usual, when facts are brought into play, the picture becomes a little more clearer than others might have us believe. It's about halfway down the page from a post at 4:47 PM.
http://corner.nationalreview.com/
Did you say facts?
On "The Corner" at National Review Online? Where?
We learned nothing from Viet Nam, apparently.
The same arguments were made about how the US would lose face, yadayada, and then President George W. Bush visited Viet Nam twice (but never in uniform).
Take up the largest drill you can find and bring it over to Phoenix. Start drilling straight in on a constant latitude and eventually that drill will emerge on the other side of the world, in the barren hills of the Hindu Kush. Well, not entirely barren, because the US has military outposts there, protecting Americans including the millions in Phoenix. It makes no sense.
Afghanis-Nam? Viet-Stan?
I'll keep repeating this. The analogies are scarily uncanny. With every passing day, they get scarier and scarier.
As to whether Al Quaida will hit us again if we pull out, the answer is they will if they can. Our being bogged down in them thar hills doesn't affect Al Quaida's ability or will.
1) Credibility. This is an
1) Credibility.
Careless wording. Human credibility is always based on reputation. However, the studies by Cornell, address the question in international relations. You need to be precise when wording something.
2) Obviously Kaplan's argument isn't about credibility
That said, this is a very weak piece from Kaplan, and shows why he is a journalist, not foreign relations expert.
Not one Afghanistan neighbour benefits with American defeat. America's defeat is Russia's defeat, Iran's defeat, Pakistan's defeat, and India's defeat. China also loses. Cost benefit analysis is clear.
The only countries that win are the GCC (Saudi Arabia, and Gulf sheikhs), Sudan, and Jihadists worldwide.
3) Afghanistan is a pivot point on the world geopolitical map. He who controls it, will inevitably control the world. Lose there, and you lose everywhere.
4) What should Obambi do?
The Chrystal Ball report is Pentagon lobbying. What's behind the lobbying?
Genuine concern for our national security or just the military-industrial complex?
Most likely the former.
The military establishment is asking for a SURGE.
Obama should give it to them.
Obama need to withdraw all troops
And I'm glad that this is generally being understood in The United States. It will only cause more trouble for The United States, if Mr. Obama continues the building up of troops. Please take a look at this table of all coalition casualties in Helmand and Kandahar in 2009 , and you wil see how the American ones have increased in the latter half of the year. They arrived in great numbers on July 2nd. All these deaths has been to no avail if the United States will have to withdraw, - as they eventually will. So it is better to withdraw now, as Mr. Biden has said. And I think that Mr. Obama -- who no doubt read this blog -- is smart enough to follow this advice
Mr. Obama, if you read this: I know you are a smart guy, so withdraw the troops.
Because of course if we rely
Because of course if we rely on naval and airpower we can really take out a series of militant groups that show no signs of being defeated by airpower now, not to mention the fact that Afghanistan is landlocked.
New Jersey
If the New Jersey cannot win in the Shoof Mountains, then air power, short of dropping nukes, cannot win in Afghanistan. It just makes the insurgents mad as hornets. So we can either go imperial (start building civilian academies of colonial administration) or learn how to live with them.
What happened to the Northern
What happened to the Northern Alliance? That was the gang of warlords for whom the U.S. provided the artillery in the form of B-52 & B-1 saturation bombing to overthrow the Taliban regime after it declined to turn over Bin Laden. It seems to me that once the U.S. got onto the ground and into the weeds, it lost the advantage. Besides, Rumsfeld got bored: not enough worthwhile targets in Afghanistan; gotta go to Iraq to find good targets. Arm chair generals Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle said Iraq was the key. So now, thanks to the malfeasant Dick Cheney Regency, we are stuck in all three quagmires: Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan. All triggered by 9/11. And still Americans and Washington do not ask and answer the question: "Why were we hit?" What is the origin of this ever-widening, never-ending conflict? Oh, I forgot. The Clash of Civilizations. I have a bridge I want to sell you, if you buy that Neocon bilge. Barack is doing little more than waltzing down the path prepared by the Neocons. Probably he has little choice.
Germanicus
Northern Alliance
The Northern Alliance is the current government of Afghanistan. The once Ahmad Shah Masood led Tajik, Uzbek, Hazara, Turkmen 'alliance' are the ones that produce all the ministers for the current regime.
A Popalzai Pashtun in the guise of Hamid Karzai was brought in as a figurehead leader at an attempt to display true unity between the northern ethnicities and the 40% Pashtuns in the South. Masood's foreign minister, Abdullah Abdullah (an ethnic Tajik) is the guy that just gave Karzai a run for his money in the rigged election last month. Had he won, it may have been a disaster and played right in to the Taliban's hands.
The Pashtuns are still largely pro Taliban.
The Taliban IS indirectly vital to long term US interests
... and here's how:
The Taliban represent a staunchly anti-Hindu Pashtun movement that allays any fears within the Pakistani establishment of being surrounded on both sides by a hostile India.
Furthermore they represent a vehemently anti-Shia fanatical regime that can be fueled to prick Iran (and its co-religionist allies in Northern Afghanistan) in the back any time the Sunni Gulf states or Egypt feel the need to check its ambitions.
Why is this vital to the US? It is vital so long as there is a firm committment to stick with a broad strategy of isolating and containing Iran.
The United States has been faced with 3 streams of concern in the last 10 years.
1. Prevent another terrorist attack on the homeland - which would likely originate from planning and logistical support in lawless areas of Afghanistan, Somalia, or less so Sudan.
2. Isolate and contain Iran, the region's second largest population (75 mil) with sizeable conventional warfare capabilities, particularly after the demise of the Iraqi check.
3. Tap into massive labor, investment and growing consumer markets in India.
All of these goals are diffcult to juggle because they require mutually exclusive means.
Keeping the Taliban in place meant having a permanent safe haven for like-minded fanatical terrorists who not-only support the Mullahs' local ambitions, but have global ambitions of their own.
Containing Iran would have been helped by having permanently anti-Iran goverments on its flanks. Right now Iran's allies constitute the governments in both Kabul and Baghdad. The only thing effectively containing Iran is American presence in both lands. And we have to leave at some point. - Advantage Iran.
Getting rid of the Taliban could only have been done by means of the Northern Alliance, which is more tilted towards India considering their mortal enemy was being trained and armed by the Pakistani Army and Intelligence as a matter or state policy. We try to cozy up to India with 19 nuclear reactors and increasingly favorable trade, Pakistan gets further stressed out, and we give them aid to train their military for counter-insurgency. They promptly put our dollars back out on the world market to acquire heavy artillery to further stave off India. WHAT A WASTE!
The United States was basically trying to have its cake and eat it too.
Even the most fair-minded analyst who otherwise would agree with a neo-conservative POV would have to admit that the Bush grand strategy was a terrible terrible failure and was doomed from the very get go. It failed to take into account at its most large scale level the complex web of causal relationships in the region. And it failed even in the details; there's a reason why the same people that fed us bogus intel to justify the Iraq invasion fled to Iran and sought their asylum when we sent troops to detain them.
Armitage was rightfully embarassed after he barked that arrogant retort to the Pakistani Intel Chief on 9/12/01: "History starts today."
No Sir, that attitude is what is bleeding our country to death today.
My suspicion is that Pres. Obama is feeling the strategic paralysis that the previous administration left us in and honestly has no clue how to untie this knot. All we have are largely intangible goals. Add in our obligations to Israel and you've got yourself the business-end of a migrane.
Cogent
A bow to you, sir. Indeed, the US is working with inconsistent and competing aims.
I largely agree with you on
I largely agree with you on the above, but I'm gradually coming to different conclusions on what should be done — namely that an informal alliance with the Taliban is the best option, not an alliance against them.
I'm not talking a tactical alliance for specific parts of the country like we saw with the Sons of Iraq; Taliban leaders have made it clear that they will fight us as long as we're there.
Instead, I'm talking about an old-fashioned, tit-for-tat peace treaty where we pull out as long as their leaders agree to certain provisions such as denial of territory to terrorists, extradition guarantees, territorial limits within Afghanistan etc.
We may not be able to hold the territory, but the Taliban is certainly aware that we can temporarily destabilize their stranglehold on Afghanistan whenever we want. As the Iranian revolution showed, religious zealots have a tendency to act like despots anywhere once they've seized power. We work with despots all the time.
Problems
Even though I agree that some sort of agreement with the Taliban leadership would go a long way, there are 2 problems with that option.
1. Try selling the prospect of ANY negotiation with the Taliban after 8 years of them being painted as the Manichean "other" in the United States. 8 years filled with horror stories about the abuse of women, children and minorities. The domestic political fallout can prove to be catastrophic for the President. And that's only if it WORKS!
2. The Taliban's core ethos is anti-compromise. And I don't say this as some sort of bigot. As an orthodox Sunni Muslim of Pakistani descent, I can say that these clowns scare the bejeezus (or beMohammeds) out of us. They're considered radical luncatics EVEN by the most principled fundementalist Deobandis in the slums of Pakistan. These guys NEVER compromise because they see compromise as capitulation and essentially a sign of weakness. There is ample evidence of this in their short-lived reign at the helm from 1997 to 2001. Forget the US, even an organization as pushover-ish as the UN couldn't find a way to satisfy the Mullahs over the most benign development projects.
If tommorrow, through whatever channels, we the US send messages hinting at compromise with the Taliban, they will only double down their efforts because they see it as a symptom of our weakness. Us Pakis may not say it polite company, but behind closed doors we know that these guys are uncontrollable machines that exist to fight. Hell, half of them are Pakistani orphans anyway, so..
Who said anything about a compromise?
I'm talking about an alliance. We're both going to get what we want. They get their stated aim (us getting the hell out) and we get our stated aim (denial of sanctuary to the extremists who are actually able and willing to support terrorists). I don't see that anyone would have to compromise at all.
It wasn't compromise when we joined the Soviets to fight Hitler even though the USSR and Nazi Germany were clearly more analogous than the United States and the USSR.
That being said, I would like to go to the bargaining table with the intention of limiting their territorial gains to the south and east, roughly the natural Pashto areas that they already control. However, I don't think such a criteria would be absolutely essential if it made the whole process untenable.
The political support is a whole different issue, but I think you have it backward. Manichean as we've made the conflict, support is clearly growing for a pullout, not for increased troop levels.
Symantics
Obviously my aim is to say the same. Alliance and compromise are the same thing in my understanding when stating the above.
The point is that if you can point to any one single example of the Taliban calling for, or accepting, a cease fire with anyone, a treaty with anyone, arbitration from anyone, alliances from anyone, or anything remotely resembling either temporary or permanent cessation in hostility THEN I will concede that what you are suggesting is absolutely possible.
But that's a key difference
Alliance means working toward a common goal.
Compromise means giving up what you want. Compromise doesn't always allow you to save face.
You don't arbitration if both sides are getting what they want.
Think this is too pie in the sky? I already pointed to one example, the Reuters link where Taliban leaders say they don’t have an interest in threatening the West unless western forces are in their region.
Last week’s Newsweek article about the Taliban and subsequent interviews with the authors in places like NPR suggest the Taliban can be as hostile to Arab foreigners as they can to Western foreigners. They actually talk up their schism with the Arabs and pride in standing on their own. There is ample example of grassroots hostility toward Arabs pre 9/11 as the jihadists imposed an Arab-centric version of Islam on a central Asian culture.
Religion only papers over these cultural differences. Leave them alone, they’ll get mad at each other eventually as they have in many other places in many other parts of the world. Nature always forces you to confront your most immediate enemy.
Taliban forces have also signed treaties with Pakistanis. Those have admittedly fallen apart, but so have any other number of treaties for causes that we still pursue. (Arab-Israeli peace, anyone?) We may even bear some responsibility for those treaty’s falling apart.
Most importantly, the Taliban does not have the ability to project power. The most they can offer is sanctuary to jihadists, and that is something they’re already doing even with thousands of troops on the ground. We’ve made them allies of convenience.
This isn't about compromise, reconciliation or any other feel-good goals. It's about recognizing where our interests lie and directing resources to the most immediate threat.
Time for another "surge"?
Smci60652 wins the thread with "scare the beMohammeds..." Maybe shorten this to "bohammeds"?
I admit my heart sunk a bit when the Obama Admin announced it was ruling out troop reductions to dispel the "false choice" between doubling down or going home. Problem is, those are likely the precise strategies we should be considering.
So perhaps another face-saving "surge" is called for. The Iraq surge accomplished basically nothing other than a short window of sunshine in which we could start leaving with our heads held high.
Of course, fighting slows in the Winter in Afghanistan, right? Maybe announce a new strategy, send in some new troops, and when the numbers tick down in Nov.-Dec. call it victory and start the withdrawal.
I really think the missed opportunities here are tragic, but it's hard to avoid the conclusion that it's too late.
Excellent Article!
This is an excellent article -- so on point! I think some of the commentators above cannot see the whole picture, but the truth is exactly as Kaplan put it -- "past empires declined by allowing others to take advantage of its own exertions." Look at China, all we did over the past decade made America weaker and them stronger. And the tendency is just like that. Americans, who haven't recently traveled to China, must open up their eyes and minds! World's largest communist state, the one that once was believed to follow the fate of the USSR, is now set to become world's next dominant superpower. They have ambitions, technology, money and great workforce. The only thing they need is us to step down ...or get stuck forever in a desert chasing a phantom enemy.
Two choices in Afghanistan
Go all out to win, or get out now. Obama can't use half measures that won't work.
It appears that some fail to
It appears that some fail to realize just how critical our continued presence in Afghanistan is. The primary reason we need to continue to maintain a presence in Afghanistan is because of the danger that the Islamic Fundamentalists in Pakistan pose to world security. Islamic Fundamentalism is on the rise in Pakistan and should they succeed in their stated goal of taking over the country they will have immediate access to the one weapon the terrorists of the world haven't yet been able to acquire - nuclear weapons - with the ability to deliver a nuclear payload to any point in the Middle East.
Far from Reality
The threat you posit above is just so incredibly far from reality.
Radical fundies have NO capability to oust the government in Pakistan. The Taliban is a movement of several tens of thousands AT BEST.
The reason they had such an easy time in the mid to late 90s in taking even Afghanistan was because the local populations were so sick and tired of corrupt warlords. That fact, plus that they were being actively armed by the Pakistani Army.
How can they oust a government that is their main provider for the very arms that they need to oust them in the first place? It just doesn't add up.
The bogus argument is also made that the Pakistani Army and Intelligence is filled with fundamentalists itself. It couldn't be further from the truth. The Army officer corp and senior generals in the ISI are thoroughly secular individuals. Just visit any of the 'defense societies' in Islamabad or Karachi or Lahore and you can see it for yourself. People use as proof of Pakistan's vulnerability the fact that its Army backed the Taliban... well ofcourse they did! But that was a matter of national defense policy to make sure they weren't surrounded by India and its sympathizers on both ends, not any sort of gooey religious affiliation. We can argue whether that policy was more informed by paranoia than any ACTUAL threat, but it isn't proof of the nightmare scenario you painted above. And Joe Biden of all people know that.
This got me thinking
Maybe winning the Prize will give Obama a little cover to do things differently: "Dialogue and negotiations are preferred [by the Obama Administration] as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts." as the Nobel Committee put it.
Disneyland
Hillary is the latest character in the Disneyland that, with fumbling ineptitude, has attempted to assert "US Foreign Policy" over the past decades. If you know you hold a weak hand but must continue playing, it's rather better not let everybody see what cards you hold! Saving those who dote on US network televison, is there anybody who can keep a straight face when this survivor of Bosnian sniper fire lectures the world on a moral issue? Then again, here's Obama, obviously intelligent and well-intentioned, twisting and writhing in the spotlight while the puppeteers, wearing black, are busy getting him back under better control.