This is the Cato Daily podcast for Friday, September 19th, 2008. I'm Caleb Brown. The meltdown in Pakistan leaves American troops in Afghanistan more vulnerable to supply lines that exist only at the whim of a shaky Pakistani government. The U.S. needs Pakistan's assistance to fight terrorism that may spring from those

ungoverned tribal areas. So what's the next proper step for the United States, especially when,

as Cato foreign policy analyst Malou Innocent tells us, the American embrace in that region is toxic.

Well, in recent developments this week, Pakistani forces fired on two U.S.

military helicopters, forcing them to return back to Afghanistan. And just last week, the Pakistani

government stopped all Afghanistan-bound supplies and fuels that course through Pakistan into

landlocked Afghanistan. And that was in retaliation for a U.S.

Commando military incursion on Pakistani soil, and what many Pakistanis feel was a violation of

Pakistan's sovereignty. And essentially what's happening is that, according to the New York Times,

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has been pushing for several

months to actually root out the militant safe havens in the tribal areas of Western Pakistan.

This is an area that's been virtually ungoverned by a state entity for several centuries.

And as a result, U.S. forces in Afghanistan have been attacked repeatedly by cross-border incursions.

And so the logic goes that the United States can and should exercise greater latitude in these tribal areas,

given that al-Qaeda, Taliban, Tariqi Taliban, and other militant groups are stationed in this region.

President Bush has approved these cross-border raids and that has caused some

problems there. But for the political leadership in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, there seems

to be no willingness really to deal with whatever radical developments would be growing out of that region with the border not really being treated

as a true border and both Pakistan and Afghanistan wanting sort of the other country I suppose

to deal with the problems there.

Exactly.

If they're even viewed as problems, what is the fix? And is there really a problem with the Bush

...