Diplomacy is like a game of chess. You have to think 3-5 steps ahead when making your moves to ensure that you don't find yourself painted into a corner (check and mate). Some people - like President Obama - are VERY good at it. Others - not so much.

What better example than the ongoing negotiations over the debt ceiling / budget deficit / Medicare? MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell lays it all out there describing how Obama originally wanted just a clean debt ceiling-only bill, and the Republicans decided to double-down and add the budget deficit to the mix. Obama called their bluff, and threw in Medicare and Social Security. He essentially gave them everything they wanted, but they weren't willing to call the President's bluff. They balked, and now they're in a quandry.

House Speaker John Boehner is in the worst place of all. He KNOWS the debt ceiling MUST be raised, or all of the bad economic repercussions of not doing so will fall upon him and his party. He is also getting flak from his party to not "give in". He's damned either way. He's in the corner with no good way out.

It's caused such an upheaval in the Republican party that the Democrats don't even know who's in charge there anymore. John Boehner is trying to reclaim some cred with the extremists in his party by declaring that a balanced budget amendment must be part of the deal on any debt ceiling agreement. Meanwhile, Senator Mitch McConnell is suggesting a plan where Congress gives President Obama the authority to raise the debt ceiling without any involvement of Congress. This way it can get raised, and all the Republicans can wash their hands of it and claim that they did not raise it. Naturally, this has been met with outrage from the Republicans who don't want to cede any authority (or who WANT the ceiling to crash). All of this makes the Republicans look like in-fighting obstructionists more interested in party politics than in ensuring the country does not fall into an economic abyss. President Obama looks like the only adult in the room.

On the other side of the planet, the leadership of Pakistan finds itself in a similar situation. They are sandwiched between India on the right, and the taliban of Afghanistan on the left. Pakistan has counted on military aid (support) from us to ensure that they can maintain an uneasy stasis with India, as well as maintain a show of strength to taliban forces that might be inclined to invade. They've also maintained a somewhat cozy alliance with the taliban, in the form of an unofficial "we don't see you" policy, which allowed Osama bin Laden to live among them undisturbed (and unreported).

The United States' action to take out bin Laden brought that latter situation into the light. This leaves the Pakisan leadership with a problem. They are angry we violated their borders, and - because of their cozy relationship with the taliban - feel required to take a stand against us. They did, denying visas to military and intelligence personnel. Unfortunately for them, that required us to deny them that military aid. Now what do they do?

Their response seems to be to dig in harder - they are threatening to pull back their troops from the border with Afghanistan. The implication is that they are willing to cede control of part of their country to foreign invasion if we don't restore the aid, which is fairly ironic if you think about it. One has to wonder if the non-extremist people of Pakistan think that trading one unholy alliance for another is really the best move.

This is especially important since stability in Afghanistan - already barely held together with threads - has been rocked even further with the assassination of Karzai's brother. This is exactly NOT the time for Pakistan to weaken its border presence, and they likely know it.

Like the Republicans - pride and unwavering loyalty to principal over what's best for their country may be their undoing. Who says watching paint dry is boring?