Link Exchange
A few articles I've been reading while waiting for the taxi...
WSJ's Charles Levinson('s stringers) venture out in to Adhamiya to discuss why "violence is on the rise in Iraq as American troops withdraw. A ground-level look at the handover provides one explanation: The Iraqi government is neglecting many of the successful counterinsurgency initiatives it is inheriting from the U.S. military."

David Ignatius one of his better articles, Caught in the Middle, over at Foreign Policy. "The United States may regard itself as outside the conflict, but in the region it’s seen as part of it. During the Bush years, people began to think of America as a combatant, not a mediator; it’s pretty hard to play the honest broker when you have two armies on the ground. The American laissez-passer credentials didn’t work anymore... What they want—respect, self-confidence, a sense that they have arrived—others can’t give them." (h/t Londonstani)

With Pakistan again squaring off against Taliban militants in the Swat Valley, Chirol over at Coming Anarchy observes: "From Pakistan’s perspective, support for the Taliban is a hedge against the future withdrawal of NATO from Afghanistan and a slowing or stop of US support" - reminding me about the jilted-lover-esque suspicion I met on a regular basis in small villages and at the edges of official meetings in Islamabad.

Finally, a timely (as usual) post from This Week at War, looking at the recent discussions on the US advisory mission in Pakistan, as well as links to (and a summary of) Bing West's latest, this time a reflection on the poor outcomes in Iraq (as in Vietnam) as the result of organizational and cultural problems in both the military and civilian oversight.