Charles Krauthammer
11/26/2010
Despite more urgent issues on the table (such as unemployment and tax ambiguity), President Obama considers his New START treaty of the utmost importance. But in these post-Soviet days the Russians are no longer a significant threat no matter how many weapons they amass. This is because it is not the number of weapons but the nature of the regime controlling them that is the issue. While much of the New START treaty with Russia is simply an irrelevant distraction, the fact that the president is ignoring the very real threat posed by the nuclear proliferation in North Korea and Iran is troubling and dangerous.
Krauthammer is a weekly columnist for The Post, writing on foreign and domestic policy and politics.
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Regarding the United States’ international relations and their importance in the Afghan war, the author says it is a mistake for America to align itself too closely with Pakistan. Zakaria notes that, unlike Pakistan’s objectives, India’s (notably the desire to defeat the Taliban) are compatible with the those of the United States. Critics of a closer relationship between the Obama administration and India say that India is too close to China, a country to which Obama has been accused of “kowtowing”. Yet India’s influence in Pakistan is significant, and in a region teeming with failed states, India is notable for its stable democracy and expanding economy. The United States should look to a relationship with India as the true “prize” in its relations with Asia.
Preventing the struggles of national minorities goes beyond physical intervention, it should involve a new type of political action and thought which achieves a balance between ethnic groups. Hu Jintao should worry, not much more time is left to fix what has been broken. 
Pakistan suffered from a multidimensional governance crisis of a very serious nature. The Pakistani state was not performing as expected and the political system was fragile. Notwithstanding the fact that Pakistan was a nuclear power, the country was weakened from within because of continued political and economic crisis of immense magnitude. 
Is Pakistan truly falling apart? Does the Zardari administration have credibility abroad? Is the Obama administration really serious about aiding the world’s only Islamic nuclear power? Does Pakistan trust the US? Read on for the answers.
Is it possible to reconstruct the political and military understanding between Europe, the United States and Russia that prevailed in the nineties and fell apart during the last Bush administration, or has the time come to lay the foundation for a new order of European security based on the needs of the twenty-first century?
Barack Obama has just launched his new strategy for Afghanistan. Is there a place for Hamid Karzai in the “restructuring plans”? Who can assure us that the other candidates aren’t ten times worse than Karzai?
In light of the multiple threats to Pakistan, it is time for national reconciliation and mutual toleration among the various political parties. 
