Pakistan

"Politically it would be very difficult to accept this was Musharraf's achievement," said journalist and analyst Steve Coll, who was the first to write in ...

The conventional wisdom in Washington -- and the core of U.S. President Barack Obama's "Af-Pak" policy, which he announced in March -- is that Afghanistan is now the central front in the conflict formerly known as the war on terror. Pakistan is essential too, of course, and indeed, the thinking goes, you can't have a successful Afghanistan policy without a successful Pakistan policy. The problem with this conventional wisdom is that it gets the situation entirely backward: The real fight is in Pakistan, not Afghanistan,

First, I would like to thank Chairman Carper, Ranking Member McCain, and other members of the subcommittee who have gathered today. I am honored by this incredible opportunity to share some thoughts on the subject of strengthening U.S.-Pakistan relations, with a specific focus on explaining the character and dynamics of jihadist militancy in Pakistan.

Rising violence in Afghanistan paired with a Pakistani army campaign against militants in the wild badlands of Pakistan begs the question: is stability in this increasingly treacherous region possible? If so, what constitutes a ‘stability’ the United States can accept? If not, what should the United States’ involvement be, militarily, economically, and diplomatically?

... a campaign against Taliban and Islamic jihadi forces. Nicholas Schmidle tells his story in a new book, To Live or to Perish Forever: Two Tumultuous Years in Pakistan. He joins us from The New America Foundation, where he is an American Strategy Fellow.

Two years ago, my wife and I vacationed in Pakistan's Swat Valley. We spent an afternoon sightseeing in the hills, visiting stupas in the dense pine forests and carvings of the Buddha etched into sheer granite cliffs, remnants of the Buddhist civilization that had thrived in the valley for centuries. Later, we played badminton back at our hotel.

The Al Qaeda videotape shows a small white dog tied up inside a glass cage. A milky gas slowly filters in. An Arab man with an Egyptian accent says: "Start counting the time." Nervous, the dog starts barking and then moaning. After flailing about for some minutes, it succumbs to the poisonous gas and stops moving.

The Taliban’s siege in the Swat Valley presents a major opportunity for Pakistani President Asif Zardari, one he’s taken an important first step toward grasping, but one that can also slip away quite easily.

The Swat has been pounded since last week by 15,000 Pakistani troops beating back Taliban fighters. Heavily armed helicopters, mortars and jets have bombarded the lush terrain, inflicting 700 Taliban casualties, according to the state’s interior minister, and displacing 400,000 people.