Hmmm ...

KABUL, Afghanistan - The Pakistani military is striking truces with Islamic separatists along the country's border with Afghanistan, freeing Pakistani militants and al-Qaida fighters to join Taliban insurgents battling U.S.-led troops and government forces in Afghanistan.

Western and Afghan officials said the new infiltration came as the United States, its NATO allies and the Afghan government were struggling to stem a resurgence of the Taliban across large swaths of southern and eastern Afghanistan.

The fighting in Afghanistan is the bloodiest since U.S. forces drove the Taliban from power after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Many of the movement's top leaders, along with Osama bin Laden and many of his followers, escaped to Pakistan and have never been caught.

The Pakistani regime of Gen. Pervez Musharraf has been negotiating truces - with the Bush administration's encouragement - with Islamic separatists in North Waziristan and South Waziristan, mountainous tribal areas along the Afghan border where U.S. officials think bin Laden may be hiding.

In return, Pakistani officials are promising to restrict the country's troops in the area to major bases and towns and to pour huge amounts of aid - much of it from the United States and other nations - into the destitute region, according to American officials.

But as the truces take hold, separatists have been crossing into Afghanistan to fight alongside Taliban and al-Qaida fighters, according to Western and Afghan officials.

I'm not sure I know what US policy should be here. On the one hand, it seems to bolster the stability of the Musharraf regime, and therefore keep their nukes more controlled. On the other, it makes the bloody situation in Afghanistan worse. Like many situations, it doesn't reduce easily to black-and-white.

In any case, an administration that is supporting the Pakistanis cedeing control of territory to Islamist enemies shouldn't ought to be talking about the existential threat of Islamic fascism and then accusing others of appeasement. Some of us remember that it was handing over control of territory to actual fascists that made Neville Chamberlain infamous.

Can you say 'Sudetenland'?

Munich agreement

(1938) Settlement reached by Germany, France, Britain, and Italy permitting German annexation of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland. Adolf Hitler's threats to occupy the German-populated part of Czechoslovakia stemmed from his avowed broader goal of reuniting Europe's German-populated areas. Though Czechoslovakia had defense treaties with France and the Soviet Union, both countries agreed that areas in the Sudetenland with majority German populations should be returned. Hitler demanded that all Czechoslovaks in those areas depart; when Czechoslovakia refused, Britain's Neville Chamberlain negotiated an agreement permitting Germany to occupy the areas but promising that all future differences would be resolved through consultation. The agreement, which became synonymous with appeasement, was abrogated when Hitler annexed the rest of Czechoslovakia the next year.