There are many things to discuss in the Rubin/Rashid paper (Rashid tends to be breathless, I agree). Rubin’s secret culpability for the massacre of 750 people, however, is not.

Nothing personal.

And I’m crediting you with raising important issues because it is now some eight years after 9/11 and everything is going downhill–yet your voice has been one of sanity, of raising important questions, not culpability for anything…at a time when others were just repeating the conventional wisdom…

I raise questions here because I think it’s important to be thinking about ways of engaging Afghanistan and Pakistan to end the crisis there, but I don’t know how. I don’t see how their plan would work, but it might, and THAT conversation needs to happen. That is why I raise questions.

But Laurence, you will not use this comment thread as a referendum on either. Like them or not, they carry a tremendous amount of influence — debating the merits of their ideas is far more constructive than resorting to ad hominem attacks and poisoning the well.

Therefore, I’d be interested in what the experts who read Registan have to say about their Foreign Affairs article. Josh is certainly right to raise questions. Based on past experience, I would take anything either of them has to say with a grain of salt…I’m glad Josh is raising this issue.

I can’t help wondering, with so many things going on at once, do these points brought up rely on some “dust settling” to take place before they can be explored with a little less speculation? I think it’s at least noteworthy that while the Pakistani government is undergoing changes, the U.S. is also in an election process. Until both governments fall into stride with their changes in of themselves, predicting how the two will interface is way beyond my foresight. I’m biting my tongue here, because I know the rules here on presidential politics, but I think you know what I’m driving at.