“WASHINGTON—American intelligence agencies have concluded that members of Pakistan’s powerful spy service helped plan the deadly July 7 bombing of India’s embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, according to United States government officials.”

As the situation in Iraq stabilizes, the front line in the war on terror will be moving. Do your homework. Start the research. Learn the players. Get ready to shift your attention—to Afghanistan. If you do, you’ll probably know more about the region’s issues than “acting president” Barrack Hussein Obama.

Both presidential candidates know that American troops will continue to be immersed in the region for years, if not decades, but have differing rationales for the commitment of troops. Since Obama and the Democrats have used Afghanistan as one excuse for their opposition to the Iraq War, they are wed to the political idea of a buildup in the region. On the other hand, as realists, McCain and the Republicans have consistently acknowledged the need for—but difficulty in marshaling resources for—a second front to tackle terror organizations in Afghanistan. 

So, it is our destiny, my friends, to be in the region for years to come, and who is best prepared to lead? It’s the candidate who is ready to lead—John McCain.

Unlike Iraq, the geo-political theater in the Afghanistan region has a level of high intrigue that reads like something out of a Tom Clancy novel. The thrust and parry of intricate and shifting political alliances and double dealing often renders Afghanistan a mere pawn in deadly game of chess between Pakistan and India.

Pakistani politics makes rigged elections and assassinations look routine. The region is a daily  Rubik’s Cube of intrigue: From the questions surrounding the assassination of Bhutto to the bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul to the fear that Pakistan’s intelligence agency has gone “rogue” to the bizarre tale of the alleged escape of a wanted al Qaeda agent from a Pakistani high security prison, Pakistan is indeed a “shadowy world” of intrigue.

And, who in the U.S. Senate missed the opportunity to be the most knowledgeable on these issues? Of course, it’s our style-over-substance presidential candidate, Barack Hussein Obama—who has even flip-flopped over his reasons for not holding hearings on NATO and Afghanistan as he chaired the Senate subcommittee that deals with NATO and its involvement in Afghanistan.

Former Senate Foreign Relations Committee senior staffer and Clinton ambassador appointee, John Ritch, indicts Obama for the neglect of his subcommittee that could have examined the role of NATO in Afghanistan, calling Obama’s neglect a “missed opportunity to explore issues that will be of fundamental importance to the next administration.”

Even as ABC News attempts to shore up Obama’s “committee-gate” problem and lack of Afghanistan credentials, it is becoming evident to the electorate that Senator McCain’s lengthy tenure, knowledge and experience in foreign affairs is essential for the protection of American interests over the next four years and beyond.

Just reigning in the Pakistani intelligence agency (the ISI) will take the kind of true grit Obama will never have. For example, consider the following report of what we are up against:

Two former high-ranking intelligence officials acknowledged that after Sept. 11, 2001, when President Musharraf publicly allied Pakistan with the Bush administration, the ISI could not rein in the militants it had nurtured for decades as a proxy force to exert pressure on India and Afghanistan. After the agency unleashed hard-line Islamist beliefs, the officials said, it struggled to stop the ideology from spreading…. Another former senior intelligence official said dozens of ISI officers who trained militants had come to sympathize with their cause and had to be expelled from the agency. He said three purges had taken place since the late 1980s and included the removal of three ISI directors suspected of being sympathetic to the militants.

Even worse, if the situation spirals out of control, India and Pakistan could be quickly pulled back to the brink of a nuclear showdown. This is serious business; America needs someone that is ready to lead!