I really do believe that if we were not in Iraq right now, we could tell Afghanistan "Help us clean out that Taliban/Al-Quaeda nest in your border provinces or we will do it without your help." And they would have little choice but to comply.

As it is, they know we're spread too thin militarily in Iraq and have spent too much political capital to be able to pull it off. Hell, Musharraff hasn't even felt the need to punish that renagade nuclear scientist of his who was a confessed traitor to his own country.

I assume you meant "Pakistan" in your first sentence.

Your statement doesn't really hold up. Who is "spread too thinly" in Iraq? Our Air Force? The Navy? Those forces are pretty much on standby right now. That leaves only the ground troops.

Now, assuming we are only occupying Afghanistan, how exactly would 130,000 ground troops in Afghanistan bring compliance from the government of Pakistan when other forces wouldn't? Would we be threatening an invasion of a nuclear-armed nation? And if we did throw our forces into Western Pakistan, then what happens next?

Where does "political capital" come into it? You think that the Democrats would have supported a full-up attack on Pakistan if we hadn't invaded Iraq?

You do realize that this is exactly how the war in Iraq started out--wrapping armed forces around a country and threatening attack if certain actions weren't carried out. The leader in that country didn't believe we'd do it, and that was two years after Afghanistan.

Other means of putting pressure on Pakistan's leadership, such as financial sanctions, or other non-military and diplomatic methods, have nothing to do with who's in Iraq and who isn't.

For the record, Musharaff has made attempts to "clean out" that area, and his forces have often had their asses handed to them. The horrible truth is that the United States right now has the only military on the planet worth a damn for major missions. And we're hated like hell every time we use it, but that's another subject.

Musharaff's attempts to appease and make deals have had the usual results of such attempts with fanatics and thugs: Musharaff ending up with his underwear pulled up over his head and new Taliban/al Qaeda conquests in western Pakistan.

"Pointless exercises" in thinking about alternatives is how analysis is done. There has to be more to this discussion than throwing rocks at our current policies. "What would your side have done?" is a perfectly reasonable question.