Given the current options, it appears that the only way Kagan's and Hanlon's plan could have the shimmer of a ghost of a hypothetical chance to work is with the aid of trained and armoured squadrons of 750,000 flying monkeys on loan from the land of Oz.

Anyone checked with Dorothy on this?

And O'Hanlon is considered to be potential appointee to a high level foreign policy position in a Clinton administration. This just too insane.

Moot.

Musharraf is effectively President-for-Life. We might even prefer that life to be not too short, but in any case it's out of our hands, like pretty much everything out there. We never control anything, although there were times in the past when we successfully purchased a coup. Mostly we have the power to stir things up, not settle them down. And right now I'm more interested in less, not more, stuff happening. 

Every strategy bloviator should sit on their hands until further notice.

I doubt think tank wonders like Kagan and O'Hanlon write their screeds these days hoping the rest of us take them seriously. I think they're writing for their constituency of one knowing full well this unrealistic garbage appeals to Bush. They're bypassing the filter straight to the top. They know Bush will catapult their propaganda and therefore themselves to respectability. The fact that their analysis doesn't reflect the reality in Iraq or Pakistan and their policy prescriptions are disastrously unsound matters not. They know what will get the ear of the Boy King. That's all they care about.

Look what ignoring reality and appealing to Bush's ego has done for Kagan's brother Fred and Jack Keane the authors of the surge. Bush calls it Petraeus's strategy to assign him the blame when it fails. He'll most surely take credit if by some miracle it succeeds. F. Kagan and Keane can trumpet their influence in foreign policy circles upping their paygrade
and when it fails they can claim that Bush, Obama, or somebody else didn't really didn't give it a chance, follow thru the way they wanted etc. etc.

There is no more serious public forum than the op-ed pages of the Times. They clearly feel that this is an important and respectable stance to take.

This isn't merely the bleating of think tank wonders. This is the received wisdom of many, if not a majority, of the people who are in charge of US foreign policy.

Can you remember the last time you saw a Times op-ed that called into question the size of the US military, and its purpose in a world without any credible enemy?

These view are not permissible--may not be expressed in the public pages of the major media organs. Just as the possibility of cutting Musharref loose is not an option. The column makes it clear that there is no reason to expect continued support to actually advance any American aims or bring any long-term stability to the region. But any alternative is unthinkable--or least cannot be stated in the major media fora.

Mostly we have the power to stir things up, not settle them down.

Your observation makes me wonder if the administration isn't actually bringing General Musharraf down rather than propping him up.

The Cheney consortium can't be too pleased about all those suitcases of cash going to a guy who let the Taliban get back on their feet. Maybe Dick thinks that having Pakistan dissolve would eliminate those pesky sovereignty issues that prevents the U.S. and NATO forces from "operating" across the Afghani border. You know, the way Nixon brilliantly outflanked the NVA by bombing Cambodia.

Richard II may also be looking at maps of Central Asian pipelines.

The linked map shows Iran, Afghanistan, and India as gray areas. This turns out to be ironically apt. For the calling for martial law in Pakistan comes at a time when the U.S. is pressuring India to bail out of the Iran/Pakistan/India pipeline deal as part of the effort to isolate Iran.

This pressure has India considering alternative deals with Pakistan that would build pipelines from Turkmenistan

Any such development would certainly be a finger in the eye of Russia's attempt to build an Energy club that would divert resources elsewhere.

India is in a tough spot. It can't afford to align against the U.S. but cooperation comes at the expense of giving up any chance of forming local blocs that would greatly benefit the country.

To return to your point, perhaps the loss of influence that reduces policy to the schemes of trouble makers has the decider believing that turning Pakistan into cottage cheese advances U.S. "national" interests.

Counter intuitively,the best outcome might be a Musharaff in charge but hostile to us.

Hostility is what hostility does. If he gave up the U.S. cash, how far would "our" mutual interest coincide?

The easiest way to get the tribal leaders off his back is for Musharaff to grant them autonomy at a market rate. They get what they want and stay out of his business in the rest of the country. Any new general would make the same deal. That is the arrangement that created the Taliban in the first place.

I think this is a place where if we supported a truly democratic movement, "we" would have to consciously give up the perks of having autocrats do "our" will.

Don't knock Clancy. I have a cat named Mr. Clark. Like his namesake, no one ever sees him mad -- they are flying through the air before he's really annoyed. The rest of the time, he goes around grooming two- and four-legged kittens.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

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