Af-gone-istan: All Is Not Well

The assassination attempt on Afghan President Karzai in Kabul should remind everyone just how tenuous the situation is in Afghanistan, and for that matter in neighboring Pakistan. It comes only a few months after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan by extremists.

In the nearly seven years after 9/11, the Taliban and al Qaeda have mobilized and reestablished themselves in Afghanistan and nuclear Pakistan. The bulk of our forces remain trapped in Iraq, acting as armed referees for their sectarian conflicts. The ragtag group known as "al Qaeda in Iraq" was always a minor presence, and can now be seen as al Qaeda's diversion to draw our attention and resources away from Afghanistan/Pakistan. It worked. Our occupation of Iraq became al Qaeda's recruiting poster in the Muslim world, and Dumbya happily peddled the lie that Iraq was the war on terror's "central front," as the group that attacked us on 9/11 gathered strength on the true central front: Afghanistan and Pakistan.