Tensions with Pakistan mean the U.S. war strategy will not succeed. This risks other U.S. objectives. The United States may once again end up creating a new crisis, which, to use Henry Kissinger’s expression, may have to be solved later at a much higher cost.

Touqir Hussain, a former ambassador of Pakistan and diplomatic adviser to the prime minister, is adjunct faculty at Georgetown University and the Maxwell School of Syracuse University.

Image: A soldier stands guard at a bunker after a suicide bomb attack in Swat valley, northwest Pakistan, December 9, 2007. A suicide bomber rammed a car packed with explosives into a police checkpoint in the volatile Swat valley on Sunday, killing at least six people including two children and a policeman. Picture taken through an extension tube. REUTERS/Ammad Waheed (PAKISTAN)​