Hence, when an Australian television news channel asked President General Pervez Musharraf in a recent interview if the war in Iraq has been a distraction from the battle against al Qaeda and the Taleban remnants because of diversion of resources from Afghanistan and Pakistan, his answer was an emphatic "yes indeed".
Speaking for his own country, he said that Pakistan needed economic help, not foreign troops to rid its tribal areas of foreign militants.
As it is, the tribal areas in the country's north have remained mired in an ancient tribal system.
Most people live under primitive conditions, without access to basic civic amenities, health care, education and a proper judicial system.
Traditionally, the government has played only a marginal role - consequently exercising insignificant influence - in the affairs of these areas.
Now the force of circumstances has moved it to establish its writ in the tribal belt and prevent the place from serving as a sanctuary for the extremist elements. But that cannot come about from the use of military force alone.
Like any other people, the tribals can be expected to accept outside influence and change only if such a drive is accompanied by material benefits.
As the President rightly averred, we need to carry out development work in the area, and "all this needs money," but not enough money has been forthcoming.
He said that we are getting only minimal assistance, and that more money is needed to bring the tribal areas into the mainstream.
In fact, even the Afghan government has been complaining that only a small fraction of the money that different countries had pledged at the Tokyo conference for the country's rehabilitation and reconstruction work has been delivered.
Militarily too, most of Afghanistan continues to be unstable. President Musharraf pointed out that outside Kabul, there are 12-13 power centres held by various warlords who, he observed would continue to act independently "unless there is a force to control that."
There is an international security assistance force (ISAF), but according to him, it is not doing enough to help the Kabul government. "Until recently, they didn't really want to get out of Kabul," he said.
The US forces, no doubt, are out in the field trying to root out resistance in the Pashtun areas. But they are too small in number, around 14,000-15000.
The main preoccupation of the US government at this point in time is to establish control over an increasing uncontrollable Iraq. It has nearly 140,000 occupation troops in the country.
With the Shias joining the resistance, there is talk in Washington of sending even more soldiers to Iraq while some of the influential opponents of the Bush administration have started to liken the emerging situation to the US war in Vietnam.
Whatever becomes of the neo-cons' adventure in Iraq, it has surely set back its plan vis-à-vis the new Great Game in the oil-rich Central Asia and the Caucasus.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell presented an interesting formulation of his country's objectives with regard to establishing peace in and around Afghanistan in a recent statement before the Senate Appropriations Sub-committee.
He said, "The old silk route of 2000 years ago is going to be recreated, except this time it will be with hard roads, with ports, with an information infrastructure, and I, hope, eventually, with pipelines that criss-cross this area and move oil and natural gas from Central Asia to the east, and not just to the west."
He noted that in order to realise this goal, the US will have to deal with security, which he specified as the threat from the "remaining Taleban and al Qaeda elements." But as the continuing trouble in Afghanistan and its adjoining areas in Pakistan shows, that threat cannot be met effectively with half-hearted military and economic assistance measures.
That requires a huge developmental effort aimed at the socio-economic upliftment of the people living in these areas.