When the top secret 'President's Daily Brief' lands on Barack Obama's desk each morning two words will catch
his eye, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Sometimes they will be conflated into the new buzz word in the foreign policy circles - Af-Pak.

Everyone's waiting for the new Af-Pak strategy to be announced. In US foreign policy priorities Af-Pak is rivalled only by Iran. The word is that it has been delayed due to arguments within the administration about whether to begin paying certain groups within the Taliban to stop fighting.

Another issue which needs to be signed off is the extent to which the Obama administration will extend military force inside Pakistan. There are already US special forces inside Pakistan along with personal operating the predator unmanned drones used to conduct air-strikes against targets throughout the North West Frontier. The debate raging behind closed doors is also about whether widen the air-strikes all the way down to the city of Quetta.

They need to move quickly. Already the Swat Valley has fallen to the Pakistan Taliban who are not just moving in and out of Afghanistan, but are heading east, towards Islamabad.

An extension seems likely, but at the same time Obama is seeking to re-assure the American public that the
commitment to fighting in Af-Pak is not open ended. He will be aware that it was a young Democrat President
who escalated the war in Vietnam in the early 1960's.

Speaking on CBS's '60 minutes' Mr Obama said “There’s got to be an exit strategy....there’s got to be a sense that this is not perpetual drift.”

There is that sense, insofar as the American have been fighting in Afghanistan for over 7 years now with no end in sight and an escalation coming in Pakistan. The President has already announced a troops surge of 17,000 extra troops and is expected to order more.

What he has done is downgrade expectations of 'victory'. Where President Bush talked about promoting democracy, the new Commander in Chief says he simply wants to ensure Afghanistan is a place from where terrorist attacks on American interest cannot be planned and launched.

Creating Switzerland in the Hindu Kush was always a bit of a tall order, even Obama's reduced expectations will be a difficult fight with no guarantee of success. No wonder he's thinking of paying the Taliban. It's easier than shooting them. Cheaper as well.