WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: The Problem With Pakistan: “If the Pakistanis don’t change their minds, the US must now look to secure its interests in postwar Afghanistan without Pakistan’s help and even over its determined opposition. Pakistan’s plan for postwar Afghanistan (a country controlled by radical Islamists in a close relationship with Pakistan who are committed to jihad in South and Central Asia and elsewhere) would turn the country into a petri dish for terror plots and a magnet for deranged and violent fanatics from all over the world. Preventing this outcome is why the US has been at war in Afghanistan for so long; securing that outcome is the chief strategic goal of a powerful wing of the somewhat fragmented and confused Pakistani national security system.”