The headlines may be subdued and diplomatic but Clinton's bitch-slap of the male autocracy in Pakistan is something the likes of which they have not heard from a woman since Benazir Bhutto, and is no doubt sanctioned by president Obama.

Regardless of whether this more frank and public approach to the hunt for the perpetrators of 9/11 will work, it is the correct one.

This is long overdue. This regime has waged open and secreted war against it's also-nuclearized neighbor India for decades. They have shown little interest in the welfare of infighting highland tribes except as fodder for their clandestine portion of that war.

All of this under the umbrella of sovereignty.

How long we must send our soldiers to die in Afghanistan - and that is what they will do should we blindly dump more battalions into harms way without a cogerent strategy for leaving - will depend on whether our tormentors are able to continue flitting across national borders like billionaires seeking the best tax havens.

Clinton has made it publicly clear that billions of dollars of our aid comes with clear expectations of progress.