As Chris noted earlier today, Glenn Greenwald extended his grudge match with Joe Klein today:

Over the weekend, Time's Joe Klein, undoubtedly reciting what his hawkish government sources told him, trotted out a brand new "justification" for the war in Afghanistan:  we have to stay in order to prevent India and Pakistan from going to war with each other.  The U.S. government excels at finding brand new Urgent National Security Reasons to continue fighting wars once the original justifications fail or otherwise become inoperative:  no more Al Qaeda in Afghanistan? Still have to stay, otherwise India and Pakistan will fight.  As part of his stenography services, Klein explained:

[S]ome of the best arguments about why this war is necessary must go unspoken by the President.

I can see contesting the swallow-the-spider-to-catch-the-fly logic of the U.S. fighting a war in Afghanistan to keep Pakistan from imploding and to keep it from going to war with India.  But there is nothing new or really covert about this argument, though the Administration is not exactly trumpeting it. It's been aired for some time, and it's central to the Administration's calculus. Here's Steve Coll -- a net supporter of the Administration's AfPak policy but no "stenographer" --  testifying before the Senate on Oct. 1:]]>