Opponents of the McChrystal plan — both within the Obama administration and among the newly minted liberal critics of the Afghan war — have advanced a couple of arguments recently.

One that I noted here a few weeks ago is that the Pakistanis love us so much, thanks to the magic of Obama, that we now can better prosecute the war on terror there with drones, etc. The Washington Post had barely repeated this spin when a spate of stories appeared on how angry the Pakistanis are with us over offending language in the new aid bill. So much for the wonders Obama had worked in the relationship (to be fair, the language came from Congress, but the Pakistanis are still blaming the entire U.S. government). As the New York Times reported earlier this week:

Now it appears that the aid bill, rather than assisting Mr. Zardari and improving America’s relations with Pakistan, threatens to undermine the president and lay bare the troubles at the heart of the two countries’ alliance.

And the Times noted today:

On Thursday, President Obama signed a civilian aid package for Pakistan of $7.5 billion over five years. The package has prompted friction over conditions for the aid — like greater civilian oversight of the military and demands that Pakistan drop support for militant groups — which army officers and politicians considered infringements on Pakistan’s sovereignty.
The White House issued a statement on Thursday noting the shared interests of the countries. However, in a sign of scant sympathy for the unappreciative reaction to the money, there was no signing ceremony.

The other argument, which Frank Rich made most prominently (again, read the Salter take-down if you haven’t), is that the Taliban and al-Qaeda don’t have much of a relationship. Then, we read this today in Rich’s paper:

A wave of attacks against top security installations over the last several days demonstrated that the Taliban, Al Qaeda and militant groups once nurtured by the government are tightening an alliance aimed at bringing down the Pakistani state, government officials and analysts said.

And this:

In Washington, senior intelligence officials said the multiple coordinated attacks were a characteristic of operations influenced by Al Qaeda. But the officials said they were still sifting through intelligence reports to determine whether the attacks indeed marked an attempt by Al Qaeda to assert more influence over the Pakistani Taliban’s operations.

Maybe they don’t work that closely together — on anything except toppling the Pakistani state.