Between the Taliban and troop surges, Afghanistan grabs the headlines--but Pakistan may be the real issue in the region. Such is the case Ken Martens Friesen, Fresno Pacific University history and political science professor, makes in this edition of Scholars Speak.

With the war in Afghanistan entering its ninth year and the death toll of American soldiers rising daily, increasing numbers of Americans are wondering if this war is “winnable.” President Obama’s decision to add 30,000 troops has renewed debate, with some arguing more troops will not solve the conflict, and others responding that a self-imposed troop withdrawal deadline will bring defeat. Yet few realize the real debate should focus not on Afghanistan, but on its neighbor Pakistan, a country with far greater impact over the destiny of the region.

While Pakistan has historically been a land with a moderate, west-leaning Muslim population, the Pakistani military government, and especially its intelligence service, has had a close relationship with the forces that make up the Taliban. The relationship was born in a common Pashtun ethnicity and a common hatred for the Soviet army, which invaded Afghanistan in 1979 and occupied it for the next decade. In the 1990s, after the withdrawal of Soviet forces and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Taliban emerged as the group most able to bring a sense of stability to the war-racked nation. The Pakistani intelligence service, wanting stability and security on its northern border, provided the Taliban weapons and support as its armies took over the Afghan capital. To this day Pakistan’s intelligence services strongly support the Taliban.

Muslim Pakistan was a U.S. ally in the 1960s, when its independently minded neighbor and rival India decided to take a non-aligned position between the United States and the Soviet Union in the Cold War. In the 1980s this close relationship deepened, as Pakistan was the staging ground against the Soviet Union’s occupation of Afghanistan. The U.S. gave $5 billion in military and development aid to support anti-Soviet activities. When that threat died along with the Soviet Union, Pakistan was seen as a counterbalance to the rising nuclear ambitions of India and warm relations with the U.S. continued. After 9/11, the U.S. relied heavily on Pakistan, donating $9 billion in military aid to, in theory, help support U.S. efforts to rid the area of the Taliban and keep them from regaining a stronghold in the rugged mountains bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan.

So, more than a bit ironically, the U.S. has given a country that has actively supported the Taliban billions of dollars to help get rid of the Taliban. Now it turns out that Pakistan diverted as much as $7 billion to help build its nuclear program and to fund its 60-year conflict with India over the Kashmir region. It is clear that Pakistan has not been the loyal ally the United States was seeking in the war on terror. The fact is that without Pakistan’s logistics, military and economic support the Taliban could not survive. Indeed, reporters have found Pakistan’s military actively training Taliban warriors. Money intended to fight the Taliban has been used to try to buy deals with the Taliban.

Why does the United States continue funding Pakistan, a country that has actively worked to support the main group that facilitated the 9/11 attacks? The U.S. says there is little choice, because Pakistan is the only moderate Islamic state in the region potentially capable of repelling the Taliban. The United States has convinced Pakistan’s army that it must more actively seek and destroy the Taliban. In response to the Pakistan army’s ambushing of Taliban strongholds, Pakistan has suffered multiple car bombings in its crowded cities. The U.S. has also sought to get rid of the Taliban leadership through attacks using pilotless drone aircraft. Too often the drones fail to hit their intended target and instead kill Pakistani civilians. This causes even more Pakistanis to hate the U.S. and support the Taliban.

Escalating the conflict in Pakistan brings prospect for an ever-increasing war against militant Islamic radicals there and in Afghanistan. Rather than ratcheting up the war, the United States needs to bring diplomacy and development back in the game. This includes efforts to bring about a just settlement to the long stalemate between India and Pakistan in Kashmir, to strengthen efforts to return democracy to Pakistan and to build the economies of both Pakistan and Afghanistan. Until moderates in Pakistan can feel emboldened to strive for peace with India, convince their citizens to resist the radical rhetoric of the Taliban and see the West as a source of hope instead of a cause for hate, the future of Afghanistan will be in doubt.