Obama's Biggest Foreign Policy Challenge? It's Pakistan

Marine officers check the view during an inspection in May at a remote outpost high in the mountains of Afghanistan near the border with Pakistan. A Marine unit staffs the post along with members of the Afghan National Army. (Photo by Mark Walker - staff photographer)

From McClatchy Newspapers:

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A nearly completed U.S. military study is expected to say that nuclear-armed Pakistan, not Iraq, Afghanistan or Iran, is the most urgent foreign policy challenge facing President Barack Obama.

Pakistan, convulsed by a growing al Qaida-backed insurgency, hamstrung by a ruinous economy and run by an unpopular government that's paralyzed by infighting and indecision, is critical to U.S. efforts to stabilize Afghanistan, thwart the spread of nuclear weapons and prevent tensions with neighboring India from escalating into a nuclear showdown.

The U.S. Central Command review is assessing the situation in the Middle East and South Asia as the Obama administration plans to draw down U.S. forces in Iraq and double the 30,000-strong American military presence in Afghanistan, several people involved in the study told McClatchy. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the study is still underway and they weren't authorized to discuss it publicly.

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My Comment: Pakistan is rapidly falling into the status of a failed state. If it was not for the American involvement in Afghanistan, the Al Qaeda safe havens in Pakistan, and Pakistan's nuclear weapons .... I would not care one bit about this country.

But we have to care.

Pakistan is a society made up of numerous ethnic and religious groups .... of which many of them have a long history of conflict and hatred towards each other. During the British colonial period, the British were very successful at playing one tribe against the other. Can the same thing be done in a modern nuclear Pakistan .... probably not. President Obama must find another way .... what that way will be can easily lay the groundwork for success in the region .... or a complete disaster.