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The diplomatic and military surge into South-Central Asia that will define the Obama administration's early years has begun. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen and CENTCOM head Gen. David Petraeus have become regular visitors to Islamabad and Kabul. Vice President Joe Biden recently came for talks, and veteran Balkan negotiator Richard Holbrooke has embarked on his first trip as special envoy to the region. Enough congressional delegations are passing through that the Pakistani media jokes that there must be a "two-for-one" deal on Pakistan International Airlines.

But perhaps people in Congress should be looking into ticket prices on Air China and Iran Air as well.

Despite American activity in the region, it's by no means clear if Washington is any closer to understanding the dynamics in South-Central Asia. To fix its strategy and hence, Afghanistan, the Obama administration will have to go regional -- and, crucially, look beyond the usual suspects for help, even if they are not naturally inclined allies.

If the additional 30,000 US troops being deployed in southern and eastern Afghanistan succeed at pushing Taliban fighters into retreating into Pakistan, they could destabilize that country's already volatile Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP).On the Pakistan side, newly armed tribal lashkars (militias) would be unable to cope with the Taliban influx.

China, Saudi Arabia, and Iran are also becoming increasingly important -- not as neighbors of the chaos, like Pakistan, but meddlers in it. China's long-term strategy is clear: It has become the largest investor in Afghanistan, developing highways to connect Iran and the giant Aynak copper mine south of Kabul. The Chinese have likewise financed the deep-water port at Gwadar on Pakistan's Arabian Sea coast. Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, is thought to be channeling money to Wahabbi mosques and the Taliban, and the country's leadership is brokering the latter's negotiations with the Karzai regime. Iran is building electricity plants to meet Pakistan's growing shortfall. More importantly, the country is renewing efforts to construct an Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline, which both Pakistan and India badly need.

Cooperation will have its price. The Obama administration may face greater pressure from both Pakistan and India to lift US opposition to the IPI pipeline. The US might also need to appeal to Iran to allow access to Afghanistan through the Iranian port of Chabahar and the Indian-built Zaranj-Delaram highway in western Afghanistan that connects the country's ring road to Kandahar and Kabul.

One way to align Afghanistan's and Pakistan's regional partners would be to follow a regional security model. Such a self-sustaining mechanism in South-Central Asia must begin with a joint Afghan-Pakistani force empowered to conduct operations on both sides of the border. At the same time, the United States will have to accept Afghan and Pakistani negotiations with Taliban commanders. If ever these groups were glorified fringe phenomena of the frontier, today they are rooted in a deep Punjabi and Pashtun social base that cannot be eradicated anytime soon.

In order to succeed a Pakistani version of the Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) that have been deployed to some effect in Afghanistan will be required. Rather than spending the civilian portion of the $1.5 billion in promised annual assistance on USAID's usual roster of "beltway bandits," Pakistani-led PRTs should be provided with the money and supplies to hire thousands of local Pashtun to build roads, hospitals, schools, and install power generators. NWFP policemen, who earn two-thirds of their Punjabi counterparts, should get more pay. This process can begin from the Khyber Agency outside Peshawar and spread north and west towards the Afghan border, turning unsettled lawless areas into settled integrated ones.

A strategy that reflects the region's changing dynamics is paramount. The original PRTs in Afghanistan need a sizable boost, and this should come in the form of Arab, Turkish and Chinese participation, under the auspices of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a regional security mechanism that may expand to include Iran, and later, Afghanistan and Pakistan. This participation would bind NATO's chief rivals for influence in the region into a common project. If the US cannot negotiate a modus vivendi among the nations and rivals of South-Central Asia, then perhaps China will.

Parag Khanna is senior research fellow in the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation.

A longer version appeared first under the title "The Road to Kabul Runs Through Beijing (and Tehran)" in Foreign Policy (February 2009). This shortened version is published with permission from the author.