Since before the Iraq war, I have written several columns stating that Pakistan should be the focus of our efforts. It's the key to winning in Afghanistan, just ask the Soviets. It's the home of Bin Laden and al Qaeda. It's government is notoriously unstable. It's a breeding ground for radical Islamists. And it has approximately 100 nuclear bombs lying around.

It doesn't take a genius to realize that Pakistan should have been priority #1 after the routing of the Taliban and Bin Laden's escape at Tora Bora. I wish I could believe that President Bush and his people were just too stupid to see this. But they aren't stupid. It's clear they were playing 9/11 off as an excuse to carry out their grand visions in Iraq. Look how overly cautious they were about putting American troops into Afghanistan, but were so eager to send 10 times more soldiers into Iraq they couldn't wait for the UN weapons inspectors to finish their jobs. Look at how quick they were to pull troops out Afghanistan and send them to Kuwait to prepare for the invasion.

I also wish I could believe that this was just a ranking of priorities for the Bush administration. But it seems like they wanted to keep the al Qaeda threat alive. Look at the $10 billion they gave to Gen. Musharraf, which we are now learning was mostly wasted. Bush's people had to know in general that this money wasn't making it to the border region to help with the fight. Even now that everyone knows, they STILL haven't done anything to make sure the funds go to fight the terrorists.

With Benazir Bhutto's assassination, and disaster in Iraq and the changing situation in Afghanistan, perhaps now the Bush administration can be forced to actually start fighting the war on terror in the place where it's happening, the central front, the country that has both Osama and nukes.

If President Bush can't now admit that Pakistan is the central front of the war, then maybe he is stupid, or crazy.