“Afghanistan pales in comparison to the problems in Pakistan,” said an official familiar with Riedel’s thinking. “Our primary goal has to be to shut down the al-Qaeda and Taliban safe havens on the Pakistan side of the border. If that can be accomplished, then the insurgency in Afghanistan becomes manageable.”

That’s music to my ears, as far as it goes. A bit further on, presumably the same source clarifies:

“Obviously, we’re not going to invade Pakistan,” said a senior member of the Riedel review. “We have to convince the Pakistanis to do the job. But we haven’t had much luck with that in the past.”

That is the crux of it, of course: there are no good solutions for Pakistan. Nevertheless, I still don’t see what an attempt at Afghan state-building gets us, except dead soldiers and an even more stretched budget.