The dialogue is being held at a crucial juncture, when Pakistan is poised to play a critical role in Afghanistan where US-led international troops are battling a determined Taliban insurgency.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai is visiting Pakistan, and one of the issues on the table is a rather audacious Pakistani offer to train the Afghan National Army. The Pakistani and Afghan security establishments have had a rather uneasy relationship, stemming from Pakistan’s long-running ties to the Taliban.

The suggestion by Mr. Rasmussen that civilian organizations such as MSF should in any way collaborate, or provide 'soft power' to the NATO forces, endangers this understanding and makes the hospitals, patients and staff more likely to be targeted by the opposition forces.

If Pakistan were a person, who would it be? Would it be Odysseus, undergoing a series of grueling tests in order to claim its true heroic identity? Would it be a hapless Sancho Panza, looking on with alarm as it’s dragged into ruin by the misadventures of those around it?

An overseas trip by a U.S. president is always costly, logistically challenging, and full of colorful backdrops. President Obama’s trip to Japan, Singapore, China and Korea is no exception. If anything, there will be more excitement than usual, since it is his first trip to the region as President and there is still tremendous foreign public interest in this appealing, young, intelligent leader, his inspiring speeches, and his photogenic wife.

Why, then, is the mood so downbeat among the U.S. press corps — the “traveling press” — as they begin covering this trip?