From The Asia Times
By Jim Lobe

With the United States intelligence community and Congressional investigators warning that the greatest threat to the US is developing in the tribal areas along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, appeals for the George W Bush administration to reassess its “war on terror” and Pakistan’s place in it are growing.
In particular, US policymakers should place more confidence in plans by Pakistan’s newly elected, civilian-led government to deal with tribal leaders, including those associated with the Pakistani Taliban and other Islamist forces, in the country’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), according to critics.

In addition, Washington should be prepared to provide substantially more aid to Pakistan, particularly development assistance for FATA, which, these analysts argue, has not been given nearly the attention that it deserves.

“There is a very narrow window of opportunity here to make the strategic shift in American policy toward Pakistan that many of us have been arguing for since 2005,” said Brian Katulis, a South Asia specialist at the Center for American Progress, a predominantly Democratic think-tank, who just returned from Pakistan after extensive consultations with leaders in the new government, including regional authorities who have been negotiating with Taliban and tribal leaders in the frontier areas.

“We’ve diverted too many of our resources to Iraq and not paid enough attention to events in Afghanistan and Pakistan,” he said. “This is where the central front in the war on terror is; it isn’t in Iraq.”

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