Tuesday - February 13, 2007

A Warning to Pakistan?

Or A New Direction in American Policy 

Satan was reading this fine blog, Public Secrets, which pointed out an interesting article at the Counterterrorism Blog that we had missed.

It is no coincidence that the meeting between new Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf was preceded by admissions by U.S. commanders in Afghanistan that they've fired artillery units at Taliban forces across the border in Pakistan. The commanding general who made those statements also reiterated what U.S. officials have said since the Waziristan "accords" - that Taliban incursions into Afghanistan have increased markedly, by one count a threefold increase. So the general's admission to the press, made after talking to the U.S. Army vice chief of staff, was probably intended as a shot across Musharraf's bow and and a first step towards increased U.S. and NATO action in Afghanistan and possibly Waziristan this spring.

Satan once again can't help but notice a pattern here.  Robert Gates takes over and the U.S. starts making sensible, hard nosed, yet common sense moves towards our enemies.  It had seemed to Satan that Bush and his advisors had forgotten to reference the Cold War playbook and had dropped the ball for the last couple of years, allowing Afghanistan and Iraq to wallow in our neglect.

What do you think?  Has Gates brought realpolitik back to American foreign policy?  Satan certainly hopes so.