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MARCO WERMAN: I'm Marco Werman, and this is The World. Barack Obama has called Afghanistan the main front in America's fight against terrorism. He plans to send 30,000 more troops there and he's named an envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan – Richard Holbrooke. Holbrooke brokered the 1995 Dayton Peace Accord, which ended the war in Bosnia, but he says Afghanistan is an even tougher challenge.

RICHARD HOLBROOKE: There is no magic formula in Afghanistan. There is no Dayton agreement in Afghanistan. It's going to be a long, difficult struggle.

WERMAN: Today, Holbrooke arrived in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. He'll meet with senior government officials about tackling militancy in the region. The World's Jason Margolis has details.

JASON MARGOLIS: Of all the foreign policy assignments President Obama has doled out, Afghanistan and Pakistan is probably the most difficult. The challenges include dealing with two unstable governments, a resurgent Taliban, and a massive narcotics trade. And of course there's the crux of the matter: fighting Al-Qaeda in the tribal region that borders the two countries. Alex Thier is the editor of the new book, “The Future of Afghanistan”. He says the goals for Richard Holbrooke's first trip may be modest.

ALEX THIER: I think that this is a listening trip.

MARGOLIS: Thier says if the US is going to make any headway, it needs to understand what the Pakistanis are feeling.

THIER: In recent polls, the Pakistani population has said that the United States is a greater threat to them than Al-Qaeda. And so we need to not only hear that, but we need to understand what the underlying insecurities are that make them fearful of the US presence and make them not fearful of the extremist presence if we're going to be able to craft a strategy ultimately that's going to turn that around.

MARGOLIS: One way to turn that around might be to increase non-military aid to Pakistan. President Obama supports more than tripling current US assistance. Last year, Washington sent $406 million dollars in aid and development money to the country. Dan Markey, at the Council of Foreign Relations, says the problem is a lot of that money hasn't been visible.

DAN MARKEY: It's often been funneled through the Pakistani government. It doesn't have an American flag on it. Many Pakistanis who receive the benefits of this assistance have no idea that USAID is behind it.

MARGOLIS: Markey says part of the Obama administration's goal should be to find higher profile things to support.

MARKEY: Things like power plants or large infrastructure projects, food aid -- things that could conceivably bear the stamp of the United States, be perceived by Pakistanis as direct assistance to normal people and help them to realize that there is a real direct benefit to working with the Americans.

MARGOLIS: This may help win over Pakistani “hearts and minds,” but it's unlikely to root out the Taliban or Al-Qaeda. For that, the US needs greater military cooperation with Pakistan, says Anthony Cordesman of The Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. But, Cordesman says, Pakistani troops have some deficiencies.

ANTHONY CORDESMAN: They don't have the ability to take on Taliban and other elements. And many of them, frankly, are either terrified by these movements or are people who sympathize with them.

MARGOLIS: Add to that the Pakistani military is corrupt and splintered – but it's powerful. It has a major ace up its sleeve: a nuclear arsenal. And that makes dealing with Pakistan a very delicate balancing act. For The World, I'm Jason Margolis.

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