Shit hits fan:

U.S. Blames Pakistan-Based Haqqani Group for Attack on Embassy in Kabul

By Jack Healy and Alissa J. Rubin, New York Times, September 14/15, 2011

KABUL, Afghanistan — Raising the death toll sharply, American and Afghan officials said Wednesday that the complexity and execution of the siege of the American Embassy and NATO’s headquarters in Kabul bore the hallmarks of a militant group based in Pakistan that has become one of the American military’s most implacable foes.

Gen. John R. Allen, the NATO commander here, said 16 people had been killed in the attack — 5 Afghan police officers and 11 civilians, including at least 6 children — double the number reported on Tuesday.

The militant group that he and other officials blamed for the attack, the Haqqani network, is a crucial ally of Al Qaeda in the Pakistani border region and has been a longtime asset of Pakistan’s military and intelligence services in Afghanistan. Pakistan’s military chiefs have resisted American pressure to go after the Haqqanis, whose primary base is in North Waziristan, part of Pakistan’s tribal areas....

Pakistan’s Spy Agency Is Tied to Attack on U.S. Embassy
By ELISABETH BUMILLER and JANE PERLEZ, New York Times, September 22, 2011

WASHINGTON — The nation’s top military official said Thursday that Pakistan’s spy agency played a direct role in supporting the insurgents who carried out the deadly attack on the American Embassy in Kabul last week. It was the most serious charge that the United States has leveled against Pakistan in the decade that America has been at war in Afghanistan.

In comments that were the first to directly link the spy agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, with an assault on the United States, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, went further than any other American official in blaming the ISI for undermining the American effort in Afghanistan. His remarks were certain to further fray America’s shaky relationship with Pakistan, a nominal ally.....

Obama prepares to punish Pakistan
By M K Bhadrakumar, Asia Times Online, September 20, 2011

The Barack Obama administration is making an extraordinary bid with the United States Congress to get the seven-year old embargo on military aid to Uzbekistan lifted poste-haste this month.....

Plainly put, Washington aims to bribe Tashkent into extending greater cooperation with the US-sponsored Northern Distribution Network (NDN), the overland supply lines from Europe to Afghanistan....

....the latest development to remove the restrictions on American arms for Uzbekistan shows that Obama is prepared to pay a heavy price simply for the sake of lessening the US's political dependence on Pakistan.....

Coming on the heels of the barely-disguised US threats of a hot-pursuit strategy toward the Pakistan-based Haqqani group that is a key component of the Taliban-led resistance in Afghanistan, Obama's move assumes significance.

The US may be left with no alternative but to have a showdown with Pakistan sometime in a near future and contingency arrangements need to be put in place if the US-Pakistan relationship were to unravel or erupt into a nasty confrontation.

Steve LeVine wrote in Foreign Policy wrote last week that the US had already pared down by half the volume of supplies being transhipped through Afghanistan by jacking up the share of the NDN volume correspondingly. Recent Chinese reports indicate that US and NATO are discussing with Beijing alternate transportation routes via Xinjiang.

So far, the anxiety was about keeping the supplies going for the US and NATO troops in Afghanistan. Now comes the requirements of a "reverse flow" as the US drawdown in Afghanistan picks up. The surge of troops and equipment for Afghanistan has already ended and the challenge ahead will be to get the troops and equipment safely and securely out of that country.

History shows that the pull-out by foreigners from the Hindu Kush always turned out to be infinitely more tricky than the conquest itself....

All Roads Lead to Islamabad
BY SHAMILA N. CHAUDHARY, foreignpolicy.com, September 22, 2011

If the killing of peace negotiator Burhanuddin Rabbani and the attacks on Kabul tell us anything, it's that peace in Afghanistan will only come when Pakistan wants it.

Pakistan Is the Enemy
By Christopher Hitchens, Slate, Sept. 26, 2011, at 11:33 AM ET

We know that Pakistan's intelligence service is aiding terrorists. What are we going to do about it?