The Obama Administration’s Afghanistan–Pakistan Policy: In Need of an Urgent Rethink

If one needs to probe into the minds of what the Obama Administration is thinking in terms of its Afghanistan–Pakistan policy, the recently released Atlantic Council of the US report titled ‘Needed: A Comprehensive U.S. Policy Towards Pakistan’ offers important insights. It can be inferred from this report that President Obama’s South Asia policy is going to revolve around Pakistan and Afghanistan, while the other actors in the region are relevant so long as they help the United States in its ‘war on terror’. 1 In the report, co-chaired by Senator Chuck Hagel and Senator John Kerry, it has been argued that ‘Pakistan faces dire economic and security threats that threaten both the existence of Pakistan as a democratic and stable state, and the region as a whole.