Outsource Afghanistan?: Thomas P.M. Barnett wants us to get out of Afghanistan and Pakistan by getting help from the neighbors:
By- hui
getting out of bed with Pakistan, we will immediately improve our relationships with virtually all of the key regional players. No joke: We'd be better off forging strong military cooperation with Russia's once-and-future-king Vladimir Putin, because his sort of blackmail will end up being far more tolerable than Islamabad's.
We'd also have more freedom of action with regard to Iran as it approaches weaponization of its nuclear capacity, and we could be far more open in our choosing of India — our true long-term future ally in South Asia — over Pakistan. And then there's China, who we need to step up and play responsible stakeholder; there's no better way to prove to them exactly how tough that row is to hoe than to give them Af-Pak for safekeeping. No, we won't love the immediate evolutions to follow, but those will be Beijing's problems — not ours. And if push comes to shove between Pakistan and India, we won't be caught in the crossfire and can balance, from offshore, what will be China's big-show-but-no-shots-fired response.
Fernando Luján believes we're doing good there, but his op-ed has driven Ackerman and Michael Cohen up the wall.
(Photo: U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee September 22, 2011 in Washington, DC. U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Mullen were testifying before the committee on U.S. strategy in Afghanistan and Iraq. By Win McNamee/Getty Images.)
HERO