“On March 27, 2009, [President Barack] Obama announced his plan to send an additional 21,000 troops to Afghanistan. His goal was ‘to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future.’ He doubled the number of civilian advisers and experts and increased funds for economic development and for building up the Afghan Army and police (but refused to define it all as nation building). He got tough on corruption within the Afghan government. For Pakistan, he had harsh words: he demanded that it do more to root out extremism but imposed few sanctions–and dangled few carrots–to enforce the threat.”
– Ahmed Rashid, Pakistan on the Brink, Page 77