Writing in The New Republic, Leon Wieseltier asks of Pakistan, “how much peril, and for how long, will this tormented place inflict upon the world?” In an article for Democratiya, Terry Glavin, on a visit to neighbouring Afghanistan, relays numerous conversations which shared a common conclusion: “On the question of troop withdrawal, their views were varied and nuanced, but their answer was ultimately the same: Stay.”

Both pieces are superb; both deserve to be read and absorbed. Glavin is irked by the anti-war movement, in thrall as it is to a hodge-podge of vulgar Marxism, third worldism and Islamism. What Afghans need to hear, he says, are these words: “We will not leave you. We will not betray you. We will not abandon you.”

Wieseltier, meanwhile, has no time for the kind of silly, soppy, appeasing platitudes, often mouthed by celebrities, which point to the same policy of abandonment Glavin counsels against. “On the second night of the atrocity in Mumbai,” Wieseltier writes, “I was hungry for news and turned on CNN. What I got was John Legend moving himself, and the audience, at something called ‘A Celebration of Heroes,’ with a revoltingly sanguine song. It is called ‘If You’re Out There,’ and it is one of those grandiose Quincy Jones-ish anthems to an easy eschatology. I expect to hear it a lot around January 20, when all will be put right. ‘If you’re out there/ Sing along with me/ If you’re out there . . ./No more broken promises/ No more call to war/ Unless it’s love and peace that/ We’re really fighting for/ We can destroy hunger/ We can conquer hate . . .’: that is what I heard while the Taj was burning. As dumb as the Youngbloods in my day, except for its groove. When trouble comes, these souls will be useless.”