“That debate is in any case now moot. But the consequences of that war are baleful, debilitating and still spreading.”

Fuller also observed that “The situation in Pakistan has gone from bad to worse as a direct consequence of the U.S. war raging on the Afghan border. U.S. policy has now carried the Afghan war over the border into Pakistan with its incursions, drone bombings and assassinations – the classic response to a failure to deal with insurgency in one country.”

Only the withdrawal of foreign military forces would lessen tensions in Pakistan, as U.S. policies have inflamed the country and created an unmanageable domestic crisis for the Pakistan government, he wrote.

“The Pakistani army is more than capable of maintaining state power against tribal militias and defend its own nukes…. But Washington can still succeed in destabilizing Pakistan if it perpetuates its present hard-line strategies,” Fuller argued.

In conclusion, he wrote, “If the past eight years had shown ongoing success, perhaps an alternative case for U.S. policies could be made. But the evidence on the ground demonstrates only continued deterioration and darkening of the prognosis. Will we have more of the same? Or will there be a U.S. recognition that the American presence has now become more the problem than the solution? We do not hear that debate.”

An article by S.M. Nassem in the Pakistan daily Dawn said on Wednesday, “As for the local population, although it may not have much love for the Taliban, they hardly see the security forces as their protectors. They are now in the midst of a crossfire and are desperate for peace even at the price of the lowest level of existence and dignity, which has been the sales pitch of the Taliban movement since its birth in 1994, with the Pakistani intelligence agencies acting as its foster mother.”

But the militant insurgency cannot be defeated by the military alone, Nassem said, adding, “Unfortunately, despite the barbaric atrocities perpetrated on them in the name of the Sharia, many at the bottom rung of the socioeconomic ladder are still unable to view the Taliban as worse than the rulers. The latter hardly ever paid attention to their needs until their own lifestyles began to face an ‘existentialist threat.’ [sic] Unless these ‘root causes’ receive the attention they deserve, it will be foolhardy to believe that people at large will rise against the Taliban.”

President Zardari said this week on NBC’s Meet the Press that both the U.S. and Pakistan intelligence agencies shared responsibility for the creation of the Taliban. “I think … it was part of your past and our past,” he said, “and the ISI and the CIA created them together.”