The operational logic is evident:

First, the United States wants Pakistan to focus on fighting al-Qaida and the Taliban.

Second, in order to be able to do so, Pakistan must shift its focus away from the Indian threat, which requires a detente with India. A piece by Jane Perlez of The New York Times that ran in the Nov. 28 Cleveland Plain Dealer reported that "reconciliation between India and Pakistan has emerged as a basic tenet in the approaches to foreign policy of President-elect Barack Obama, and the new leader of Central Command, Gen. David H. Petraeus. The point is to persuade Pakistan to focus less of its military effort on India, and more on the militants in its lawless tribal regions."

Third, friends of al-Qaida and the Taliban need to block this shift in focus by Pakistan. To do so, they must ramp up the hostility between India and Pakistan. How could they do that?

Fourth, a special operation in India's most important city would accomplish such a goal. Remember, a special operation must have operational significance to qualify as "special ops." If its meaning is only tactical, it's just a bunch of yahoos running around making noise.

Fifth, the special operation was tactically well planned and carried out. To work operationally, India must blame it on Pakistan. Early indications suggest that may happen.

Sixth, if India does blame Pakistan and Pakistan feels the Indian threat is increasing, the American strategy of persuading Pakistan to focus on the Taliban and al-Qaida will have been defeated. That is operational art at its best.

Meanwhile, in Iraq, an odd combination of events may offer a strategic win-win-win opportunity for all parties: the United States, the Shiite-dominated Baghdad government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and al-Qaida. Last week the Iraqi Parliament passed the new status of forces agreement that would keep American troops in Iraq through 2011. Washington regards that as a success, which it is not. What the United States needs most is to get out of Iraq before the start of the next round in the Iraqi civil war.

However, to get Sunni Muslim support for the agreement, the Maliki government had to agree to submit the deal to a national referendum next year. If the agreement is defeated in that referendum, everyone could win. American troops would have a better chance of getting out while Iraq is still quiet.

Such are the vagaries of Fourth Generation war in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq. We will see similar oddities in Afghanistan as that war moves toward settlement. The sooner Washington can stop thinking in binary terms and get used to strange outcomes, the better.

(William S. Lind, expressing his own personal opinion, is director for the Center for Cultural Conservatism for the Free Congress Foundation.)

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