The commentary here is terrific, but most of it contains a central conceptual error, which is to presume the existence of Pakistan.

Pakistan was a very bad idea in 1947, and it hasn’t improved with age. US foreign policy, if we still have one, is not powerful enough to vivify a cadaver.

Tactics are fine, but our strategy should be to dismember Pakistan and to reduce its remnants to harmlessness, in collaboration of course with our friends in New Delhi. Sind and the Punjab are Indian, if they are anything. The Baloch want their own state. The tribes in the FATA and NWFP have caused the world enough trouble, and need to be brought to heel or eliminated.

The central error was made in November-December 2001, and what we see now is merely the outworking of the defeat Pakistan inflicted on us eight years ago. We can either destroy Pakistan now, or after the next successful terrorist attack.

All our stuff is over there, so I vote for now.