It would appear that the central front in Washington's "war on terror" has moved eastwards about 1,800 kilometers from Iraq to Afghanistan and the frontier regions of Pakistan. This war is marked by the increasing insurgence of the Taliban, Islamabad's alleged failure to prevent the Sunni Taliban forces, both Afghan and Pakistani, from infiltrating into Afghanistan from parts of the North-West Frontier Province and the deterioration in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Bush White House has become seriously uneasily about Pakistan after Benazir Bhutto was assassinated. They've been treading water while watching things go from bad to worse in both Pakistan's domestic political chaos and in the border areas with Afghanistan. The US doesn't have more troops to put in, and even if there were a few more brigades were sent there from Iraq the military isn't going to solve the problem in Afghanistan.