Obama attempt to ‘win’ A-stan goes through P-stan

The new mash-up word for the combined strategic theater is AfPak.

Anyway, it seems clearer all the time that Presdient Barack Obama doesn’t believe he can win Afghanistan without reining in Pakistan. But how?

Parr of his answer seems to be increasing Predator drone strikes on Pakistan.

The idea is even being broached about expanding the Predator strikes beyond the most rugged border area, Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas, to the Baluchistan province on Pakistan’s west.

It’s a danger, though. President Asif Ali Zardari’s government is shaky. If it falls to another civilian, Nawaz Sharif has been critical of the strikes.

What if, instead, there’s a military coup? One linked to Inter-Services Intelligence? The ISI we have good reason to believe is in come degree of cahoots with the Taliban?

There’s another danger with going into Baluchistan. If we destablize it, neighboring Iran may see its own opportunity, just like with Iraq.

All of this is playing at the edges, though.

The big question — the big question for domestic consumption as well as deciding foreign poiicy, is, “what is victory?”

President Obama has now mentioned benchmarks for Afghanistan, but he hasn’t yet mentioned what they are. (Note to folks like Media Matters for America: Obama had a chance NOT to get more deeply involved in Afghanistan. He has instead, per the new phrase, chosen to “double down” instead. So, it IS now his war.)

One benchmark for Afghanistan may be particularly tough – the War on Drugs there. In fact, Obama’s special regional envoy, Richard Holbrooke, just said, “We’re going to have to rethink the drug problem.”

That means either going a LOT lighter on eradication, or else paying people a LOT more money not to grow the stuff. And, are we going to continue those payments after we remove our troops? Even before that, how do we prevent either the Taliban or warlords

Given all the above links, setting benchmarks re the Pakistan half of AfPak is going to be even more tricky than for Afghanistan, probably. And, if this includes more covert operations, or yet more expansion of Gitmo East, aka Bagram, how much more forbearance does Obama get, or lose for more people, either inside or outside the Democratic party, on the strongly progressive end of discussing this issue?