Today’s Must Read

One week after The New York Times went front page with the news that Al Qaeda had regrouped and was thriving in a tribal region of Pakistan, the Bush administration has launched a diplomatic offensive to convince Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf to crack down.

But talk hasn’t gotten them very far. And since the administration is extremely wary of alienating what they see as a key ally, their secret weapon is… the Democratic Congress. From The New York Times:

Vice President Dick Cheney made an unannounced trip to Pakistan on Monday to deliver what officials in Washington described as an unusually tough message to Gen. Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, warning him that the newly Democratic Congress could cut aid to his country unless his forces become far more aggressive in hunting down operatives with Al Qaeda….

Pakistan is now the fifth-largest recipient of American aid. Mr. Bush has proposed $785 million in aid to Pakistan in his new budget, including $300 million in military aid to help Pakistan combat Islamic radicalism in the country.

The rumblings from Congress give Mr. Bush and his top advisers a way of conveying the seriousness of the problem, officials said, without appearing to issue a direct threat to the proud Pakistani leader themselves.

“We think the Pakistani aid is at risk in Congress,” said [the senior administration official], who declined to speak on the record because the subject involved intelligence matters.

The official adds that the message they’re sending to Musharraf now “is that the only thing that matters is results.” Sounds like a message worth sending. And it would seem that this game of “Good Cop, Bad Cop” in general goes much better when Congress is the bad cop for a change.