Amid increasing attacks by NATO forces, and a spreading and increasingly deadly insurgency, there will be more urgent attempts to make contacts with Taliban commanders and open negotiations.
The combination of a deadly insurgency and billions of dollars in aid money has unleashed powerful market forces in the war zone.
Favored under Saddam Hussein's rule, disenfranchised Sunnis are now leading the increasingly deadly insurgency.
In November 1967, the British withdrew from South Yemen in the face of mass riots and an increasingly deadly insurgency.
But Saudi Arabia, where suicide bombers tried to blow up an oil center on Friday, has already been battling a deadly insurgency, which started in 2003.
The Times said senior American officials were assembling new information about the increasingly deadly Iraqi insurgency that showed "it has significantly more fighters and far greater financial resources than had been estimated."
A deadly insurgency has started, beginning with a few clans connected to the Islamists and now expanding to several more.
The war effort has deteriorated so drastically that the administration is planning to take more than $3 billion earmarked for crucial reconstruction projects and shift them to security programs designed to ward off the increasingly deadly insurgency.
They say the deadly insurgency here will make it impossible for many voters - especially in violence-prone Sunni areas - to reach the polls.
Together, Dr. Allawi's two actions seemed early evidence of his stated strategy for taming the deadly insurgency by making concessions to fighters who cooperate and cracking down on those who do not.