Pakistan

U.S.-Iran cooperation? Neo-Taliban? For those of you wanting to go deeper on Afghanistan/Pakistan issues than the campaign soundbytes, here's New America's Nick Schmidle debating Amin Tarzi of the Center for Advanced Defense Studies on Bloggingheads.tv.

YUSHCHENKO PLEDGES VOTE: Ukraine's president says the country will hold a popular referendum on joining NATO within two years.

CAYMANS VOTE: The Cayman Islands are moving towards its first ever popular referendum, a vote the prime minister wants on his proposals for a "modernized" constitution. This story from the Caymanian Compass, a national newspaper there, says the referendum may include more than one question.

SCOTS ON THEIR OWN: Scots want to vote on independence, a new poll says.

ISRAELI VOTE? The Israeli Knesset debates the wisdom of holding a public referendum on territorial concessions.

SOLVING PAKISTAN'S CRISIS: How to restore those Pakistani judges deposed by Musharraf? Former parliamentarian Haji Saifullah Khan suggests a popular referendum might solve the problem -- and give the judiciary new public legitimacy.

Is it possible that Iraq is still sucking up all the best intelligence and counter-insurgency assets of the U.S. Government and leaving only the scraps to deal with the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan? New America Fellow Nick Schmidle, whose New York Times Magazine cover story got him and his wife expelled from Pakistan by the Musharraf government, looks at the state of play in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas in this piece in Sunday's Washington Post. With unmanned Predator strikes killing civilians and senior military advisors trying to replicate Iraq's Anbar Awakening, the answer seems clear.

Missing in the presidential debate over Pakistan are two critical points, first, it was the U.S. strategy in the war on terror, resulting in the disappearances of more than 500 Pakistani citizens, that triggered the erosion of General Musharraf's support. Second, that neither the Taleban nor the United States are well liked in Pashtun areas. Unless the next U.S. administration takes these two facts to heart, says American Strategy Program Senior Research Fellow Anatol Lieven writing in The National Interest, Pakistan will soon be lost to extremism.

Pakistan's parliamentary elections may have significantly backfied on President Musharraf, says New America President and CEO Steve Coll appearing on Jim Lehrer's The News Hour.