Yesterday, two American helicopters were fired on and turned back by Pakistani troops after trying to enter a Pakistani village without the government’s permission. This only 12 days after the first known US ground incursion into Pakistan killed 20 civilians in the same village. The Pakistani people and their leaders are demanding  that Pakistan defend its land and people against foreign attacks.

President Zardari of Pakistan, is now on a diplomatic jaunt in the UK presenting what his aides call a “new Marshall Plan” for Pakistan’s northwestern border with Afghanistan. Will an Obama administration transplant the Bush administration’s policies that failed in Iraq to the homeland of the Taliban? Or will they commit to serious, long-term solutions?