More Pakistan Problems

More dire warning about Af-Pak, this time from Joint Chiefs chair Adm. Michael Mullen.

The U.S. military's primary focus needs to shift immediately from Iraq to Afghanistan, Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Monday.

"We remain committed to the mission we've been given in Iraq -- make no mistake. ... But Afghanistan has been an economy of force operation for far too long," he said at a Pentagon news conference.

Mullen said he is "gravely concerned" about recent Taliban and al-Qaeda gains across much of southern Afghanistan and in Pakistan.

"This isn't about 'can do' anymore. This is about 'must do,' " Mullen said. The Taliban and al-Qaeda are "recruiting through intimidation, controlling through fear, and advancing an unwelcome ideology through thuggery. ... The consequences of their success directly threaten our national interests in the region and our safety here at home."

It's getting worse in the Af-Pak area, too. The WaPo sums it up best:

But despite the threat the intelligence conveyed, Obama has only limited options for dealing with it. Anti-American feeling in Pakistan is high, and a U.S. combat presence is prohibited. The United States is fighting Pakistan-based extremists by proxy, through an army over which it has little control, in alliance with a government in which it has little confidence.

And despite the inane calls to go and take Pakistan's nukes, the reality is we don't know where all of them are, exactly.

The United States does not know where all of Pakistan’s nuclear sites are located, and its concerns have intensified in the last two weeks since the Taliban entered Buner, a district 60 miles from the capital. The spread of the insurgency has left American officials less willing to accept blanket assurances from Pakistan that the weapons are safe.

Pakistani officials have continued to deflect American requests for more details about the location and security of the country’s nuclear sites, the officials said.

Some of the Pakistani reluctance, they said, stemmed from longstanding concern that the United States might be tempted to seize or destroy Pakistan’s arsenal if the insurgency appeared about to engulf areas near Pakistan’s nuclear sites. But they said the most senior American and Pakistani officials had not yet engaged on the issue, a process that may begin this week, with President Asif Ali Zardari scheduled to visit Mr. Obama in Washington on Wednesday.

“We are largely relying on assurances, the same assurances we have been hearing for years,” said one senior official who was involved in the dialogue with Pakistan during the Bush years, and remains involved today. “The worse things get, the more strongly they hew to the line, ‘Don’t worry, we’ve got it under control.’ ”

And this problem will continue to get worse before it gets better. We need real solutions to Pakistan and Afghanistan, and we need them now before the situation explodes...literally.