Obama's Munich Moment

Pakistan is looking like Cuba in the 1950s and Iran in the '70s as armed zealots start to take over a country without the will to resist.

Accusing Pakistani leaders of "basically abdicating to the Taliban and the extremists," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sounded the alarm yesterday before the House Foreign Affairs Committee:

"We cannot underscore the seriousness of the existential threat posed to the state of Pakistan by continuing advances, now within hours of Islamabad, that are being made by a loosely confederated group of terrorists and others who are seeking the overthrow of the Pakistani state."

As Congress debates $7.5 billion in new aid and an "extremely concerned" White House awaits a scheduled visit early next month by the Pakistani president, the growing threat of an extremist takeover of a nuclear-armed nation rises to the top of America's foreign policy agenda.

"The Pakistani government is fiddling as the Northwest Frontier Province burns," warns a statement from Amnesty International, noting that hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis are "now at the mercy of abusive and repressive Taliban groups."

The Obama Administration is facing a Munich-like moment in the Middle East, and it will be a true test for a new president who has been accused of overestimating conciliation and lacking toughness in dealing with allies and adversaries.

This one, unlike George W. Bush's pre-invasion rhetoric about Iraq, does involve the real possibility of mushroom clouds.

Castro and Karl Rove, Commentators

Fidel just won't go away and, like Bush's Brain in Newsweek, he has to give us his expertise on '08.

“I enjoyed observing the embarrassing position of all the presidential candidates in the United States,” Castro wrote this week about reaction to his stepping down in a column for Cuba's state-run newspaper. “One by one, they found themselves forced to proclaim their immediate demands to Cuba, so as not to alienate a single voter.”

Castro also had a few words about theme of change that has dominated the campaign: "Half a century of blockade was not enough for the chosen few. 'Change, change, change!' they shouted in unison. I agree. Change!--but in the United States."

After noting the first President Bush's endorsement of John McCain, Castro remarked on the current President's visit to Africa, "I don't know what he's doing there."

Karl Rove could tell him. Now that they both have time on their hands, the Western Hemisphere's two leading political manipulators might want to get together and exchange secrets of the trade.

If Fidel wants to learn a thing or two, he might watch 60 Minutes Sunday night, for an interview with a Rove operative explaining how the Master ordered her to take sexually compromising pictures of a Democratic governor. That's Rove's definition of an "embarrassing position."