The diplomat who can secure a lasting peace treaty between India and Pakistan will have done work truly worthy of receiving the Nobel Peace prize. Also, by securing a peace between these two long-time neighbors, then Pakistan could focus on its western border with Afghanistan.

Can you get to win Pakistan by providing her with more and more Dollars. You may be able to win the corrupt on the helm of affairs but NOT the Pakistanis. No amount of dollars can rebuild Pakistan that she has suffered by helping USA to defeat USSR and eliminating Al-Qaida.
No amount of dollars can enable USA to get out of Afghanistan with honor and dignity. Pakistan can do this but not the way USA wants to give the big brother role to INDIA after her pull out. India CANNOT help USA as she wants USA to bleed more and more in Afghanistan so that she can prove to former USSR of her intimate friendship.
AMERICANS please try to understand the INDIAN game plan.

US -led war effort in Afghanistan was doomed to fail right from the start when Bush administration allowed Musharraf to relocate Haqqani and Taliban cadres from Kunduz in November, 2001 where they were trapped against advancing Northern Alliance. Pakistan relocated those cadres to Quetta and North Waziristan from where they have planning and carrying out daily raids on US/NATO forces ever since.

Obama has continued Bush policy of mollycoddling Pakistan by putting Gates, Mullen and Petraeus in charge his Afghan policy, the trio that has justified Pakistan’s terrorist connections.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has sought to justify Pakistan’s terrorist connections, alluding to a “deficit of trust” between Washington, DC and Islamabad. Mr Gates also said there was “some justification” for Pakistan's concerns about past American policies. Gen David Patraeus, rushed in with an apologia for his Pakistani friends, by claiming that while Faisal was inspired by militants in Pakistan, he did not necessarily have contacts with the militants. Both Adm Mike Mullen and Gen Patraeus fancy themselves to be “soldier statesmen” a la Gen Dwight Eisenhower. Adm Mullen has visited Pakistan 15 times and Gen Patraeus no less frequently. Both evidently have high opinions of their abilities to persuade Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani to crack down on the Haqqani network in North Waziristan and the Taliban’s Mullah Omar-led Quetta Shura.

However Obama knew that roots of Taiban insurgency reside in Pakistan.

As narrated by Bob Woodward in his recently published book titled ‘Obama’s wars’:

Mike McConnell, the then director of National Intelligence tells Obama soon after his victory in the November 2008 presidential elections that ‘Pakistan is a dishonest and untrustworthy partner, unwilling or unable to stop elements of its intelligence service from giving clandestine aid, weapons and money to the Taliban‘.

"We need to make clear to people that the cancer is in Pakistan," Obama declared during an Oval Office meeting on Nov. 25, 2009, near the end of the strategy review. The reason to create a secure, self-governing Afghanistan, he said, was "so the cancer doesn't spread there."

Obama’s Afghan policy is failing because his team of Gates, Mullen and Petraeus does NOT share his conviction about the ‘cancer’ being in Pakistan because otherwise they would have ordered the drone attacks on Mullah Omar’s QST in Baluchistan which as per General McChrystal in his report to Obama is: ‘the No. 1 threat to US/NATO mission in Afghanistan. At the operational level, the Quetta Shura conducts a formal campaign review each winter, after which Mullah Mohammed Omar (Afghan Taliban Chief) announces his guidance and intent for the coming year‘.

Obama’s Afghan policy is failing because his team of Gates, Mullen and Petraeus does NOT share his conviction about the ‘cancer’ being in Pakistan.

The author seems to have committed an exceptionally grievous error in assuming that what he initial guessed "civilian surge" meant was undoubtedly correct.

Everything written about the civilian surge in this article references purely financial and commercial activities. The U.S. government's current concept of a civilian surge goes far beyond that.

The civilian surge refers to a significant increase in non-military personnel working either directly in Afghanistan and/or Pakistan or otherwise putting their efforts toward this issue from elsewhere. This includes, but is certainly not limited to, State Department personnel to include members of the Foreign Service, USAID, DSS and other agencies, police advisers and trainings, personnel from a myriad of NGOs, advisers from the Department of Commerce, the Department of Energy, teams from the DEA, etc.

Before you criticize something, you had better make sure you actually know a good deal about it. The civilian surge is one of the strongest points of the revised Afghan strategy.

This article offered a solution in it's final paragraph as quoted below
" Pakistani influence over the Taliban is not necessarily a bad thing. Instead of engaging in a futile effort to change the Pakistani Army's entire worldview, the United States should use Pakistan's connections to start talking with the Taliban. The insurgents are ready to negotiate over their participation in a government in Kabul "
This is one half of the solution in my opinion because Pakistan's worldview has to be modified if it is to realize it's full potential. The Sunni Arab extremism that Pakistan and the Taliban had relied on to defeat the Russian Army is now redundant and must be replaced with a more moderate view. It is no longer at war with Russia and should seek both Russian and Indian alliance in the future. This mess that the USA has gotten into is in reality a Russian war waged to protect it's southern flank from Islamic extremism. Pakistan and the USA need to realize this and make peace with both Russia and India for the good of us all. If Pakistan seek this new path it is guaranteed a golden future.

I agree with the opinion of Dr.Kuchbhi. The Pakistanis are playing their cards according to a per-planned policy,not to let the allied forces to win any objects in Afghanistan. A teen of the primary is even well aware that the Taliban terrorists whether in Pakistan and Afghanistan are the forefront forces of Islamabad and are being trained and equipped with modern weapons for a larger task than the war in terror. Pakistan has the undeniable intention to use the Talibans to blackmail the central Asian states by confronting them with terrorist activities and as well use these forefront forces to the incursion into Indian bordering region. The second phase of Pakistan's hostility towards the American and EU has began in 2010 of obstruction on the allied supply line,as this is usual step to abort the military operation of allied forces against the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

First, Iraq was not a success. The final result of the war is that Muqtada al-Sadar now has vast power and will be running the country. He is totally pro-Iranian, thus eliminating the balance of power that existed prior to the invasion. This makes Iran the main power in the Middle East. Nice going!

Because Bush invaded Iraq and neglected Afghanistan, he lost the war on both places. The only path now is to get out of Iraq entirely now and not wait another day. Because CIA would not let Karsai resign when he wanted to, they are stuck with him, a loser with no support. The situation is untenable. The contractors only care about the money, so the government might as well pay them to go home. I was in USAID decades ago and was in charge of the aid program in Afghanistan. They built all kinds of roads that no longer exist and the company that built them went out of business. This is a no-win situation. Bush basically destroyed NATO, because there is no way to win the war. Nice going!

Cut our losses, get out and cut off all aid to Pakistan until they shape up. What is the point of giving them money if they use it against us? Duh. It is high time the US military, CIA and the military contractors stopped running the country and telling the president what he has to do. They never get it right, so why pay any attention to them? Just use some common sense. As for the MIddle East, there is nothing to be done. Pull the plug on all of them, no more aid until they reach a settlement. Obama is letting himself get put into the same box Kennedy let himself be put in. He is the president, the Commander in Chief, so he must start acting as though he is.

The entire country is suffering from the General Paralysis of the Insane. What kind of shock treatment does it need? Another financial attack? Another 9/11 Get read. The entire American establishment is rotten to the core.

War is a very serious thing. It should not be conducted by children, liars, and incompetents. It is my prejudice that Professors of Political Science should remain silent on the subject, particularly when Americans are being killed and the Professor teaches at the Sorbonne. These people are not ones I would chose as leaders in a fight to the death.
The problem with the Afgan war is that neither President Bush, Obama or their acolytes, have defined our strategic goals; what does victory mean? At what condition will somebody say, "it is over; we won." There are many people, who claim we are losing. I believe the families of those returning home in body bags.
I propose that our leaders tell the truth:
We are at war against people who want to kill Americans,
We are fighting an enemy who does not honor national boundaries, and continually crosses the Afgan-Pakistan border for tactical advantage. We will openly tell both nations that we will do the same.
We have allies who will not fight and die; their soldiers are brave, their leaders are stupid or cowards. They worry only about their careers. But no one who will not fight can win a war.
We belong to a talking group, the UN, which is compose of nations that want us to fail. We should discuss with them, but never make war decisions based on their words.
We have fought many wars in countries in which the leadership is totally corrupt and incompetent. Most of the money we spend on their people is stolen.
We have people in our nation who want us to fail. An example is a young soldier who published the names of Afgans who cooperated with us. The enemy is now killing our valued allies.
Perhaps the most important truth is that when a nation wages war, it can lose, its citizens can be slaughtered.
As America prepares to vote for its leaders, some honesty would be useful.

...an aircraft carrier parked in the Arabian Sea, just outside Karachi harbor, with General David Petraeus on board.

One of these days the Pakistan army will fly Mullah Omar in a helicopter to this aircraft carrier where he will receive the document of surrender.

All countries from outside the region should leave Afghanistan - Afghans will manage their peaceful transition to a prosperous nation with the help of local players like Chine and Pakistan.