"Of course, with the troubles in Pakistan, the U.S. and NATO-led forces are looking for alternative options," she says. "In recent years, we've seen gradual deterioration of the safety and reliability of the Pakistani route, and obviously this makes the U.S. and NATO revisit the options in Central Asia."
The Central Asian states are hardly rule-of-law democracies. So we just have different problems. But perhaps--if the Pakistanis prefer to have a fling with the Chinese--after a few years of diminished or eliminated US aid and the loss of income from the Pakistan supply routes, we can again use Pakistan to diversify our supply lines.
That's the way it is. You never really solve a foreign policy problem. If you succeed in solving one, you just get to work on another. As much as I may complain about our State Department, I'll never claim their job is easy.
