Speaking Friday in Australia, Rice suggested to reporters that a surge in Taliban-related violence in Afghanistan had its source in the restive semiautonomous tribal areas along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan.
"We understand that it's difficult, we understand that the northwest frontier area is difficult, but militants cannot be allowed to organize there and to plan there and to engage across the border," Rice said. "So yes, more needs to be done."
The strong message to Islamabad comes just a few days before Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani is scheduled to meet with President Bush at the White House.
The Pakistani prime minister doesn't seem eager to do anything to actually prevent their frontier areas from serving as a jihadi staging area to fight us in Afghanistan:
Before his departure, Gilani told reporters that Pakistan was fighting the war on terror in its own interests.
"This is our own fight. This is our own cause," he said, noting that his ruling party's leader, Benazir Bhutto, had died in a terrorist attack on Dec. 27.
Gilani's three-month-old government is persevering with efforts to negotiate peace deals along the wild frontier and stabilize a country roiled by Islamist suicide attacks. Force will be used only as a last resort, he reiterated this past week.
"Pakistan's national security and internal stability is paramount," Information Minister Sherry Rehman said. "Pakistan is making its own policy for its own problems."
Look, we aren't going to invade Pakistan. That would be foolish. Why risk turning Pakistan into an enemy or neutral just because they are not helping enough? Face it, unless we open up a supply line through Iran, we are dependent on Pakistan just to feed our troops in Afghanistan.
But just as Pakistan has there own interests that define their fight, we have inerests that define our fight. And our interests mean we are being pulled into going to go after al Qaeda inside Pakistan, I think.
Just not the way everyone assumes. Pakistan is giving us little choice.
