This is how the swimming pool area at Mumbai's Taj Mahal Palace & Tower hotel looked on Nov. 29, the day that Indian commandos finally declared the five-star hotel secure after it came under siege by terrorists on Nov. 26:

This is how the pool area looked Sunday, Dec. 21, when the hotel partially reopened just 22 days after the terrorist siege ended:

By 11 p.m. on Sunday, and amid security checks that included metal detectors and X-ray machines, people had checked into about 71 of the 268 rooms in the Taj's tower wing. The 297 rooms of the 105-year-old heritage wing, however, might not reopen until March 2010, a Mumbai-based Morgan Stanley analyst has said.

The Trident-Oberoi, the other posh hotel that was attacked, opened its Trident portion on the same day with similar security measures. One hundred of the Trident's 557 available rooms were reserved for Sunday night.

At both hotels, reopened restaurants were fully booked.

Photo: STR/AFP/Getty Images, SAJJAD HUSSAIN/AFP/Getty Images

So, that "exact" Taj Mahal replica that a Bangladeshi filmmaker is constructing near Dhaka turns out to be a more of a crappy carnival attraction. Here's video:

of Global Voices has more from the Bengali blogosphere.

A wealthy Bangladeshi filmmaker is spending about $60 million to build an exact replica of India's Taj Mahal 20 miles from Dhaka:

Construction work began five years ago, but Mr Moni says that he came up with the idea in 1980 when he first visited the real Taj in Agra, northern India.

He said that his homage had been built because most people living in Bangladesh - where nearly half of the population exist below the poverty line - cannot afford to travel to India to see the real thing.

“Everyone dreams about seeing the Taj Mahal but very few Bangladeshis can make the trip because it's too expensive for them,” he said.

Indian diplomats are not happy about the plan and are currently "investigating" the matter. Though one admits, “A copy is a form of flattery, I suppose.”

Bangladesh clearly has a taste for monumentally ambitious construction projects. Their stunning Louis Kahn-designed parliament building took two decades to construct and, I would think, would be more a source of pride than an exact copy of India's most famous building.

Photo: Munir UZ-ZAMAN/AFP/Getty Images

This week, Muslims from Belarus to Indonesia are celebrating the holiday Eid al-Adha, in which an animal -- typically a cow, goat, or sheep -- is slaughtered to commemorate Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son for God. A portion of the meat is distributed to the poor.

In India this year, however, Eid is taking a largely quiet tone, the Washington Post reports, in respect for those victimized in late November's terrorist siege of Mumbai. Leaders of the All India Organization of Imams of Mosques requested the country's 140 million Muslims -- about 13 percent of the population -- to wear black bands on their shoulders to show solidarity. Muslim leaders have also requested that cows not be slaughtered in order to show sensitivity to Hindu beliefs against killing cows.

Indian Muslims -- some photographed praying Dec. 9 at the Jama Masjid mosque in Delhi, in the image above -- for the most part seek to distance themselves from the allegedly Islamist terrorists who attacked Mumbai, and they have drawn attention to the fact that about one third of the 171 victims killed were Muslims. Additionally, Muslim leaders have refused to permit the nine terrorists killed during the siege to be buried in Islamic cemeteries.

"It's not a happy Eid," Ahsaan Qureshi, a famous Indian comic, told the Post.

Photo: MANPREET ROMANA/AFP/Getty Images

In 1986, I had the opportunity to dine at the Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai (then Bombay). I was visiting extended family, and for some reason, someone decided that a once-in-a-lifetime splurge at the Taj would be worth it. At the time, I had no idea that a place of such opulence could exist in India. Stepping into it, I felt as if I were entering an oasis, an otherworldly bubble with First World conditions transplanted inside.

Mumbai’s air was oppressively hot, thick, and sticky. Inside the Taj, the air was air-conditioned, crisp, and breathable. On the streets of Mumbai, my ears were assaulted with the sounds of horns incessantly beeping and hawkers selling their wares. Inside the Taj, the atmosphere was quiet and serene. Outdoors, I smelled dung and smoke, and walked through overcrowded, filthy streets lined with shacks inhabited by barefoot children in muddy clothes. Inside the Taj, it was odor-free, and poverty-free. Strangely, I don’t remember exactly what I ate there, but whatever I ate, it didn’t make me sick.

Thus, I felt a tinge of nostalgia last month when I watched smoke billowing out of the mighty Taj.

To see images of the besieged Taj and other sites attacked in Mumbai, check out FP’s latest photo essay, “Mayhem in Mumbai.”

Photo: Uriel Sinai/Getty Images

The lone surviving terrorist from last week's devastating attacks in Mumbai has been in police custody since he was captured last week (his exact name is a matter of dispute, but let's call him Ajmal Amir Kasab for now). He's given up some information, according to press accounts, but the Times of London now reports that Indian interrogators are prepared to take a drastic step to get more answers -- giving him truth serum.

While it sounds like something that only exists in bad spy flicks, or in the pages of a Harry Potter volume, administrating truth serum, or narcoanalysis, is an actual technique used by Western intelligence agencies during the Cold War. The interviewee is typically drugged with barbiturates and then undergoes a form of psychotherapy by interrogators. It's a questionable tactic given that the drugs can cause hallucinations and psychotic episodes.

According to Mumbai's joint commissioner of police, much of the information Kasab gave has been accurate (it was Kasab who told where to find the boat the terrorists hijacked). Questions about his background and nationality remain, however. On Tuesday, Mumbai Police Chief Hasan Gafoor told reporters that Kasab admitted he is a Pakistani and comes from a village in the Punjab province.

But some journalists, like the BBC's Syed Shoaib Hasan, who are following up on these details by visiting Faridkot, the terrorist's alleged hometown, find the information conflicting.

Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari told CNN that he "very much" doubts that Kasab is Pakistani, but pressure is building in India to prove that he is and unravel his links to Lashkar-e-Taiba, the militant organization U.S. and Indian investigators believe is behind in the attacks.

Hence, truth serum. Though it may be effective in getting Kasab to spill the beans, I'd rather that drugs and psychotherapy not become a substitute for good, old-fashioned intelligence.   

Good story in the Wall Street Journal about Yusuf Muzammil, the Lashkar-e-Taiba leader who India believes is a key figure in the Mumbai attacks:

Just two days before hitting the city, the group of 10 terrorists who ravaged India's financial capital communicated with Yusuf Muzammil and four other Lashkar leaders via a satellite phone that they left behind on a fishing trawler they hijacked to get to Mumbai, a senior Mumbai police official told The Wall Street Journal. The entire group also underwent rigorous training in a Lashkar-e-Taiba camp in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, the official said.

This much has already been widely reported, with some minor discrepancies about where the satellite phone was found. But here's a new wrinkle:

Mr. Muzammil had earlier been in touch with an Indian Muslim extremist who scoped out Mumbai locations for possible attack before he was arrested early this year, said another senior Indian police official. The Indian man, Faheem Ahmed Ansari, had in his possession layouts drawn up for the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower hotel and Mumbai's main railway station, both prime targets of last week's attack, the police official said.

Mr. Ansari, who also made sketches and maps of locations in southern Mumbai that weren't attacked, had met Mr. Muzammil and trained at the same Lashkar camp as the terrorists in last week's attack, an official said.

If this is a trial balloon, I say two thumbs up:

President -elect Barack Obama is seriously considering giving former ambassador Richard Holbrooke a key role in handling diplomacy in south Asia, a move that would put one of America's most prominent international troubleshooters in the middle of trying to resolve the thorny and interrelated problems surrounding India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, according to several sources familiar with the transition.

Holbrooke, it must be noted, has been more or less auditioning for this job. Best known for his role in brokering the Dayton Accords that ended the war in Bosnia, he has in recent years been establishing himself as an authority on Afghanistan and South Asia.

So what has he been saying? Fortunately for us journalists, he's left a long paper trail.

He supports democracy in Pakistan. He thinks the war in Afghanistan "will eventually become the longest in American history." He's a fierce critic of spray eradication of poppy crops. He called recently in Foreign Affairs for a regional diplomatic strategy toward Afghanistan involving Iran, China, India, and Russia. He wants tough conditions on aid to Hamid Karzai's government, which he views as weak. He says the national police are "Afghanistan's most corrupt institution." 

Aside from his generally on-point analysis of the situation, Holbrooke would bring a lot of other qualities to the job. He has experience working with NATO in the Balkans. He's not afraid to stand up to warlords or bust through bureaucratic roadblacks in Washington. He wouldn't shrink from delivering harsh truths to leaders in Kabul and Islamabad. He'd have the relentless drive needed to keep the Obama administration focused, knows how to get attention in the press and on Capitol Hill, and has a good feel for how to use domestic politics to his advantage. Frankly, it's hard to think of anyone better suited for this mission.

He chose his words very carefully, but U.S. President-elect Barack Obama nonetheless made big news in India with this exchange from today's press conference:

[Question:] During the campaign, you said that you thought the U.S. had a right to attack high-value terrorist targets in Pakistan if given actionable intelligence with or without the Pakistani government's permission. Two questions on that.

One, do you think India has that same right?

And, two [...] some people up there on the stage took issue with your saying that. They have strong opinions about issues ranging from Pakistan to the surge. And while they're all committed to have a successful United States, what private assurances have they given you that they will be able to carry out your vision even when they strongly disagree with that vision as some of them have been able to do in the past? [...]

OBAMA: I think that sovereign nations, obviously, have a right to protect themselves. Beyond that, I don't want to comment on the specific situation that's taking place in South Asia right now. I think it is important for us to let the investigators do their jobs and make a determination in terms of who was responsible for carrying out these heinous acts.

I can tell you that my administration will remain steadfast in support of India's efforts to catch the perpetrators of this terrible act and bring them to justice. And I expect that the world community will feel the same way.

I don't think this is what Obama intended to communicate, but here's how the Times of India is reporting it -- as if the president-elect had issued a "tacit endorsement" of India "bombing terrorist camps in Pakistan" under certain circumstances:

Sovereign nations have the right to protect themselves, US President-elect Barack Obama said on Monday, when asked if India could follow the same policy he advocated during his election campaign — of bombing terrorist camps in Pakistan if there was actionable evidence and Islamabad refused to act on it.

Although Obama said he did not want to comment on the specific situation involving India and Pakistan, his tacit endorsement of New Delhi adopting the same policy was circumscribed by two caveats: first, let the investigators reach definite conclusions about the Mumbai carnage, and second, see if Pakistan will follow through with its commitment to eliminate terrorism.

That's a bit of a stretch. Now, for the good news: Despite the palpable anger in India and word that India's security status has reached a "war level," no troops are moving to the border with Pakistan as they did after the attacks on the Indian Parliament in late 2001.

Pop quiz: What's the name of the lone surviving attacker from Mumbai?

It's a bit of a trick question. Reports in the Indian press and elsewhere have ascribed various names to the terrorist captured along the Mumbai waterfront, who seems to be the same fellow captured in this chilling photo:

Here's my count of the names in use:

• Ajmal Mohammed Amir Kasab
• Amjad Amir Kamaal
• Ajmal Amir Kamal
• Ajmal Qasab
• Ajmal Amin Kamal
• Ajmal Amir Kasab
• Mohammad Ajmal Qasam
• Azam Amir Kasav
• Mohammed Ajmal Mohammed Amir Kasav

Some of these are just differences in transliteration (Kasab vs. Qasab, for instance), but the rest would seem to be the product of a sloppy media culture and bad press management by Indian officials.

All the reports I've found, however, agree that he is from Faridkot, Pakistan, he is 21 years old, he admitted being a member of Lashkar-e-Taiba, and he has only a fourth-grade education.

It's amazing how quickly India appears to be falling into the terrorists' trap.

It seems obvious that Pakistan's civilian government, led by President Asif Ali Zardari, has no interest in stirring up trouble between the two nuclear-armed neighbors. And it seems equally obvious that any elements of the ISI, Pakistan's notorious intelligence service, who might have been in some way involved in the attacks in Mumbai would have done so in order to undermine rapprochement between Islamabad and New Delhi.

As for Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Kashmir-focused militant group has made clear that it aims to provoke conflict between India and Pakistan and stir up a pro-Islamist backlash among Muslims in India.

Yet one can already see public anger in India leading political developments in a direction the terrorists wanted. Some Indian politicians have been less than careful in saying the terrorists were sent by Pakistan, the state, rather than that they came from Pakistan, the country (which hasn't even been confirmed yet, anyway). India is considering halting talks over Kashmir and ending the five-year cease-fire along the Line of Control. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has vowed to "go after" those responsible for the attacks, which could box him into the dangerous step of taking action against Lashkar-e-Taiba within Pakistan-held territory.

Meanwhile, Pakistan's hackles are up, its military leaders raising the alert levels of their forces and threatening to divert troops from the Afghan border to the eastern border with India. Zardari's about-face on sending ISI chief Ahmad Shuja Pasha to New Delhi is clearly a response to domestic pressure after Indian newspapers said Pasha was being "summoned." Similarly, the more vocally India calls on Zardari and Army Chief of Staff Ashfaq Kayani to crack down on militancy, the tougher politically it will be for them to do so lest they be seen as doing New Delhi's bidding.

In India, the same sort of perverse dynamics are at work. Already, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is making political hay out of the terror in Mumbai. The party has been running newspaper ads saying, "Fight Terror. Vote B.J.P." Instead of rallying behind Singh's government, the BJP has instead called for its resignation and accused Singh of being soft on terror. These tactics may well backfire, but based on the BJP's history of populist, anti-Muslim rhetoric, we should be concerned about its return to power.

Cranking up the pressure on Pakistan may fit the public mood in India -- and it may be smart politics for Singh and his ruling Congress Party -- but it is folly as policy.

Who benefits in Pakistan when tensions with India rise? Precisely the anti-democratic hardliners in the military and intelligence services, and the Islamic hardliners who are their sometime allies, that India should want to see marginalized. As one South Asia analyst told Reuters, "The forces that are threatening the West, the forces that are threatening the civilian democracy in Pakistan and the forces who are acting against India are all interlinked to each other."

We should pray that Singh has the wisdom and the political acumen to navigate this minefield more skillfully than he has thus far.

A few more supposed details from the interrogation of Ajmal Kamal, the militant who was captured, are trickling out in the Indian press. It seems pretty clear from all of the reports that 10-12 bad guys entered the city by inflatable boat. (The New York Times has some good color on their arrival at the Mumbai docks.) Beyond that, accounts differ widely.

Some stories say that there were eight terrorists already waiting in the Taj Mahal and Oberoi Hotels. The Times of India claims that all of the terrorists were Pakistani citizens, and that they had expected to make it back on the fishing trawler they hijacked. This was not a suicide mission.

To give you an idea of how disparate the accounts can be, the Times names the skipper of this purloined vessel as Amarjit Singh, while The Hindu says his name was Balwant Tandel. Rediff says there were two fishing boats. The Times says the terrorists left from "an isolated creek near Karachi," while Rediff reports that "Intelligence Bureau officials are trying to verify if the terrorists came in through the Persian Gulf." Rediff also mentions that its information comes from the interrogation of "Abu Ismail," while according to the Times a terrorist named "Ismail" was killed at Girgaum Chowpaty, a local beach.

All of the Indian press accounts I've read, however, point explicitly to Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistani militant group. NDTV even claims that one of the terrorist's phones was "used to call Lashkar commander Yusuf Muzamil in Muzaffarabad," the group's headquarters in Pakistan.

UPDATE: The Washington Post clears up some of the mystery:

On the basis of preliminary inquiry, we know that there were a total of 10 terrorists. Nine have been eliminated, one is caught," said Vilasrao Deshmukh, the chief minister of the state of Maharashtra, of which Mumbai is the capital. "They split into teams of two for action, and there were four at the Taj."

The Hindu reports on the latest from Mumbai:

Maharashtra Police investigators say they have evidence that operatives of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba carried out the fidayeen-squad [suicide-squad] attacks in Mumbai — a charge which, if proven, could have far-reaching consequences for India-Pakistan relations.

Police sources said an injured terrorist captured during the fighting at the Taj Mahal hotel was tentatively identified as Ajmal Amir Kamal, a resident of Faridkot, near Multan, in Pakistan’s Punjab province.

Highly-placed police sources said two other Pakistani nationals had also been held in the course of intense fighting on Thursday.

All three, the sources said, identified themselves as members of a Lashkar fidayeen squad.

Based on the interrogation of the suspects, the investigators believe that one or more groups of Lashkar operatives left Karachi in a merchant ship early on Wednesday. Late that night, an estimated 12 fidayeen left the ship in a small boat and rowed some 10 nautical miles to Mumbai’s Gateway of India area.

The investigators say the fidayeen unit of which Mr. Kamal was a part then split up into at least six groups, each focussing on a separate target: Mumbai’s Nariman House, which is home to a large number of Israeli families and a Jewish prayer house; the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus rail station; the Cama hospital; the Girgaum seafront; and the Taj and Trident Oberoi hotels.

As usual, treat such early, anonymous reports with caution.

An interesting article by Alan Cowell and Mark McDonald in today's New York Times reveals an inconvenient truth about analysts who study terrorism: they often have wildly divergent views about the same events.

Christine Fair, senior political scientist and a South Asia expert at the RAND Corporation, was careful to say that the identity of the terrorists could not yet be known. But she insisted the style of the attacks and the targets in Mumbai suggested the militants were likely to be Indian Muslims and not linked to Al Qaeda or Lashkar-e-Taiba, another violent South Asian terrorist group.

There’s absolutely nothing Al Qaeda-like about it,” she said of the attack. "Did you see any suicide bombers? And there are no fingerprints of Lashkar. They don’t do hostage-taking and they don’t do grenades." By contrast, Mr. Gohel in London said "the fingerprints point to an Islamic Al Qaeda-affiliated terrorist group."

Fair goes on to make the point that India has a lot of angry Muslims of its own, and has a history of telling the world, "Our Muslims have not been radicalized."

I would point out that the two main competing theories -- a domestic group and outside involvement -- are not mutually exclusive. Extremist groups have been known to share logistical networks (for safehouses, weapons procurement, etc.), and there aren't always bright lines between them. So, it could be that domestic perpetrators of the attack conceived and executed the idea, but operatives turned to Lashkar-e-Taiba or some other group for logistical help and expertise.

UPDATE: Here's a pretty strong clue that points to Kashmir:

A militant holed up at the center phoned an Indian television channel to offer talks with the government for the release of hostages, but also to complain about abuses in Kashmir, over which India and Pakistan have fought two of their three wars.

"Ask the government to talk to us and we will release the hostages," the man, identified by the India TV channel as Imran, said, speaking in Urdu in what sounded like a Kashmiri accent.

"Are you aware how many people have been killed in Kashmir? Are you aware how your army has killed Muslims. Are you aware how many of them have been killed in Kashmir this week?"

On the other hand, a senior Indian military official seems pretty confident the militants are from Faridkot, Pakistan. One captured terrorist had a Punjabi accent.

Barack Obama, 47, will soon become one of the youngest presidents in U.S. history, but that's nothing compared with Bhutan's Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck. Today, the 28-year-old -- who quite fittingly has a master's degree in politics from Oxford -- officially became the world's youngest reigning monarch when he received the coveted raven crown. In December 2006, his father, the former king, abdicated and handed many responsibilities of the throne to his son, but it wasn't until today that the official coronation took place.

Bhutan became a parliamentary democracy in March when people went to the polls for the first time ever. The country now has a prime minister as head of government, but the young, handsome king remains head of state.

In July, FP compiled a list of "The World's 10 Youngest Leaders." At the time, those youngsters were:

1. Bhutan's King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck (Feb. 21, 1980)
2. Dominica's Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit (June 8, 1972)
3. The DRC's President Joseph Kabila (June 4, 1971)
4. Macedonia's Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski (Aug. 31, 1970)
5. Nauru's President Marcus Stephen (Oct. 1, 1969)
6. Swaziland's King Mswati III (April 19, 1968)
7. Georgia's President Mikheil Saakashvili (Dec. 21, 1967)
8. Togo's President Faure Gnassingbe (June 6, 1966)
9. Bulgaria's Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev (May 5, 1966)
10. Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev (Sept. 14, 1965)

Earlier, in March, we also compiled "The World's 10 Oldest Leaders." John McCain would have been a spring chicken compared with some of these guys:

1. Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe (Feb. 21, 1924)
2. Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah bin Abd al-Aziz al-Saud (1924, exact day unknown)
3. Nepal's Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala (Feb. 20, 1925)*
4. Senegal's President Abdoulaye Wade (May 29, 1926)
5. Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak (May 4, 1928)
6. Kuwait's Emir Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sahab (June 6, 1929)
7. Cuba's President Raúl Castro (June 3, 1931)
8. Kenya's President Mwai Kibaki (Nov. 15, 1931)
9. India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh (Sept. 26, 1932)
10. Burma's Than Shwe, chair of the State Peace and Development Council (Feb. 2, 1933)

*Koirala is no longer prime minister as of Aug. 18, 2008, likely making Cameroon's President Paul Biya, born Feb. 13, 1933, the new addition to the list.

Photo: Paula Bronstein/Getty Images

I got a military press release on this story yesterday, and it seems little else is known about the incident:

An Afghan national in Meywand, Khandahar province, reportedly doused a U.S. civilian working with the U.S. military with a flammable liquid and lit the worker on fire. Another U.S. civilian then shot and killed the attacker.

The burn victim sustained serious injuries and was transported to a Coalition forces medical facility for treatment.

That's pretty horrible. The interesting bit, however, is this detail:

The U.S. civilians were working with teams of anthropologists and psychologists that help the U.S. military with cultural awareness.

There's a fierce debate among anthropologists about the morality and practical effects of working with the U.S. military, a topic we addressed a few months back in a debate between Hugh Gusterson and Peter D. Feaver.

One aspect of the discussion we didn't really delve into was the military's controversial "human terrain teams," in which social scientists actually embed with military units to advise them on cultural issues. It sounds like the civilian was a member of such a team; I imagine this incident in Afghanistan will make it even harder to recruit qualified folks.

This autumn, an ancient trade route that crosses the disputed Kashmiri border between India and Pakistan opened after being closed 61 years ago, when the two countries broke free of the British Empire. Many hope the opening of the trade route, in a bitterly disputed Himalayan region, will boost the economy on both sides of the “Line of Control” that divides the territory. In the photo above, the first truck carrying goods from the Pakistani side rumbles across the bridge to the Indian side.

For Kashmir's artisans, famed for their rugs, copper bowls, and other handicrafts, the opening of the trade route is a sign of hope. Check out some of their beautiful creations and learn more about the trade route in this week's photo essay, "Making Peace, One Trinket at a Time."

TAUSEEF MUSTAFA/AFP/Getty Images

I'm pretty sure it would be illegal for Barack Obama to accept these funds. And perhaps a nonpartisan appeal to the next president would be wiser at this point. Still, it's a very enterprising idea from a bunch of young teens in Peshawar -- give us "books and pens," not "bombs and missiles":

A group of schoolchildren in Peshawar collected 261 US dollars for 'Uncle Obama’s election campaign' in a bid to help restore peace in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) and Frontier province of Pakistan.

Holding placards and charts inscribed with slogans for peace and 'No more war and bombings,' the school children, mostly aged between 10 and 13 years, denounced increasing incidents of blowing up of schools, bombing of residential areas and displacement of families in the Fata and the volatile Swat district of the Frontier province.

"Uncle Obama we expect peace from you," read one placard held by a 10-year-old boy. Another chart, shown by an 11-year-old girl, stated: "Let us smile and play." They appealed to Barack Obama, the Democratic party's nominee for office of the US president, to give them books and pens instead of bombs and missiles.

The schoolchildren said they planned to hand the money over to the local U.S. authorities to pass along to Obama.

FILE; SHAUN CURRY/AFP/Getty Images

How many generals would put meeting with development and finance experts as one of the top items on their to-do list?

My guess: not many. Which makes Gen. David Petraeus, who is gearing up to take the reins at Central Command later this month and putting together a 100-day review of U.S. strategy in the region, all the more impressive.

In what I see as a very encouraging sign, Petraeus reached out to officials at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund last week, Bank President Robert Zoellick reportedly among them. A source close to the general told Reuters that the meeting's purpose was "to touch base and note the Central Command's interest in supporting comprehensive approaches in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and others."

With Pakistan melting down and Afghanistan fast becoming a Taliban paradise, a change in strategy couldn't happen soon enough.

RIZWAN TABASSUM/AFP/Getty Images

Do we need another secret intelligence assessment to tell us that Pakistan is falling apart?

No.

If anything, that country's slow-motion collapse been reported to death over the past several months. Nonetheless, it's reassuring that the situation there is getting high-level attention in Washington.

Much has been made of Pakistan's troubles with terrorists and tribal militants, and there are lots of good ideas out there for how to address them. Less discussed? The country's economic meltdown.

As Fasih Ahmed reports for Newsweek, Pakistan's economy is in "free fall." The country's credit ratings are being slashed; creditors are making runs on banks; inflation is soaring; and capital is fleeing. If things continue to get worse, we may come to find that -- while the two issues are certainly related -- the global financial crisis did to Pakistan what the terrorists never could.