Obama has promised, if elected, to send two extra combat brigades to Afghanistan, to use that as leverage to get more NATO combat troops from the European allies and to mount a massive multi-billion dollar civilian aid package for Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan.

"We cannot tolerate a terrorist sanctuary, and as president, I won't," Obama said in his major foreign policy speech on July 15. "We need a stronger and sustained partnership between Afghanistan, Pakistan and NATO to secure the border, to take out terrorist camps, and to crack down on cross-border insurgents. We need more troops, more helicopters, more satellites, more Predator drones in the Afghan border region. And we must make it clear that if Pakistan cannot or will not act, we will take out high-level terrorist targets like Bin Laden if we have them in our sights."

We now know who was listening -- the current White House occupant, who this week announced withdrawals of some 8,000 U.S. combat troops to redeploy them in Afghanistan. And immediately after Obama's July speech, President George W. Bush authorized a secret executive order to allow U.S. Special Operations forces to carry out ground assaults inside Pakistan without Pakistani approval.

Obama was ridiculed as both naïve and dangerously provocative when in a Democratic debate a year ago he said, "If we have actionable intelligence on al-Qaida operatives, including bin Laden, and President Musharraf cannot act, then we should."

It now appears that Obama has been charting the course for the policy in Afghanistan, and toward Pakistan, that is now being adopted. The question is whether this policy of more troops, more cross-border strikes and more escalation into Pakistan is the right one.

The first problem is that Pakistan, a nuclear power now under civilian rule, insists it will not allow foreign forces onto its territory. "There is no question of any agreement or understanding with the coalition forces whereby they are allowed to conduct operations on our side of the border," insists Pakistan's Chief of Army Staff, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani.

The second problem is that the NATO allies are less than keen to participate. Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper said this week that Canada's 2,500 troops would be out of Afghanistan in 2011, having lost almost a hundred dead.

France is still reeling over the deaths of 10 paratroops. The Germans have refused to put more troops into harm's way.

The third problem is after many civilian casualties at their hands, the NATO troops are outstaying their welcome, while the Afghan government remains corrupt, feeble and unpopular. As the battered British and Soviet forces of earlier Afghan wars can testify, this is not a recipe for success.