Thanks for this Magnifico.  As someone who believes that an escalation in Afghanistan will be Obama's first real strategic mistake - the others have been sins of omission - I have nevertheless been impressed by Obama's refusal to be bullied into a quick decision by Cheney and the Brass.

I will be more interested in what he says tomorrow about an exit strategy.  Will he "balance" an escalation with a determination to withdraw once certain strategic goals have been achieved?

Getting Pakistan to do a lot of the dirty work is a no-brainer from a US imperialist perspective.  What bothers me is that Obama seems to have accepted the neo-con assumption that the way to stop terrorism is to engage in "nation building" - i.e. satellite creation.  

It is doubtful that any policy could create out of Afghanistan a "nation" the US could happily partner with.  The best he can hope to do is "contain" the drug and terror cartels within certain regions and let the rest of Afghanistan look after itself.  However even that is doubtful  There is no strategy which leads to the US "creating a satisfactory satellite" there.

notes from no w here