The Obama administration’s review of the war in Afghanistan will be released this week on the heels of a string of recent violence in the region. Just today an IED killed 9 civilians in Afghanistan and just hours ago a U.S. drone killed seven in the tribal region of South Waziristan.

Obama has said recently that the U.S. needs to have an exit strategy when it comes to Afghanistan, but this comes just weeks after approving an additional 17,000 U.S. soldiers to be deployed to the region.

The administration seems to be looking for a way to maintain influence in the region while lowering the profile of the conflict politically in the United States.

In short, Obama and his administration are hedging their bets. They want to stay in the region, but without the headlines and political pressure that is mounting in the United States against the war.

When this review is announced this week it will be important to ask whether or not the voice of the Afghan people is represented.

Criticism of Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai has increased since the beginning of Obama’s Presidency, primarily because he is demanding that US soldiers need to stop killing Afghan civilians. He also has called for a timetable of withdrawal of foreign troops. He would only be willing to have a long term foreign troop presence if they are there to help with the reconstruction of the country.

The administration is starting to show signs that they would be willing to have talks with the low level fighters of the Taliban. Joe Biden when speaking at a recent NATO conference said, “…I do think it is worth engaging and determining whether or not there are those who are willing to participate in a secure and stable Afghan state… Five percent of the Taliban is incorrigible, not susceptible to anything other than being defeated. Another 25 percent or so are not quite sure, in my view, [of] the intensity of their commitment to the insurgency and roughly 70 percent are involved because of the money, because of them being paid.”

This comment could foreshadow a program on the horizon much like the US program in Iraq which pays Sunni insurgents a monthly salary to work in security.

All of this is well and good but it is impossible to talk about the war in Afghanistan without talking about Pakistan. Just hours ago another U.S. drone attack was confirmed which killed seven people. This drone attack is just the latest in a long line of approximately 35 attacks since last summer. The U.S. government never confirms these attacks or comments on them in the press, so they do not play a prominent roll in the American news cycle.

Within the context of the Afghanistan war it is important to understand that the Pashtun people essentially straddle the Afghan/Pakistan border. This is the same phenomenon that the Russians dealt with back in the late ‘80’s. Peshawar and Islamabad, on the Pakistan side of the border, will continue to be the epicenter that fuels the Taliban insurgency by serving as a place where they can regroup and train new recruits.

Because the Pashtun people that make up the Taliban have half of their homeland in which to retreat, it becomes impossible for the American/NATO side to ever achieve a clear military victory.

The drone attacks have been a way for US forces to address this border problem, but the drone attacks have fueled the destabilization of Pakistan. The Pakistan government has turned a blind eye to the drone attacks, but the people of Pakistan have not and anti-American sentiment within the region is at an all time high. It is likely that much of the violence on the ground in Northwest Pakistan is retaliatory in nature toward elements that militants believe are being complicit in the drone attacks.

So essentially, any endgame in Afghanistan is going to be extremely fragile in nature until Pakistan is restored to a stable country. Unfortunately there is no sign of this happening in the near future.