dr. biddle? >> i agree wholeheartedly on me colleagues on the panel but the only amendment i would offer i would be cautious on identifying the threat of terrorist attacks to the united states too narrowly around al-qaeda per se. it has been the primary source of such threat in the past. if its destruction leads other organizations in pakistan, however, to shift their aims in ways they have not heretofore and take up the banner of al-qaeda's war against the distant enemy, the underlying identification of our interests implies that we would then have to broaden our target somewhat. but the focus of it is exactly as dr. kilcullen and dr. jones have suggested. >> so let me build on that a little bit. to what degree with the death of osama bin laden could a decision by pakistan to join wholeheartedly in this effort, i.e., focus on the haqqani network, harness the -- or tame the disparate instincts of the isi to pull together a wholehearted effort with the shura and foreign nationals in their country

dr. seth jones is a senior political scientist at the rand corporation. is a well-known expert on afghanistan and the author of the book, in the graveyard of empires, america's war in afghanistan. stephen biddle is a senior fellow for defense policy at the council on foreign relations. an expert in defense policy and strategy. gentlemen, we look forward to your help in addressing many of the questions i have just posed. senator lugar. >> mr. chairman, i join you in welcoming our distinguished witnesses and we look forward to a very important hearing with them. afghanistan has been important and to still be a source of threat to the united states security. on that we are all agreed. the question before us is whether afghanistan is important enough to justify the lives, the massive resources that are being spent their, especially given our nation's debt crisis, or can we achieve the most important national security goals in afghanistan essentially preventing the taliban from taking over the government, and preventing afghan territory from being used as a terrorist safe haven at far less expense? at our first hearing on afghanistan last week, i offered four observations as a prelude. first, we'r

dr. biddle wants to say something. >> it is fair to say that the karzai government has not been as enthusiasticbout decentralization as we have been. which brings us back to the printer that dr. kilcullen mentioned which is the relative priority we place on the security effort as opposed to the governance reform effort. i think the political strategy in the theater and the approach that we are going to take to induce a karzai government that is less enthusiastic about decentralization to move in the direction we would like is a tremendous, and that priority right now. for understandable reasons, the theater command has tended to believe it needs to show early progress in security and that is a requirement, but i think if what we do is to prioritize security at the point where we kick the can down the road on the eventual requirement to deal with governance issues, we run the risk of undermining the security improvements that we are buying at such great cost today. in terms of -- to the extent that we need to change priorities in the conduct of the campaign, a change i would like to see is an in