The person who managed to get inside the CIA base and kill these many CIA operatives was a Jordanian doctor who managed to convince both the Jordanian intelligence agency and the CIA that he would bring in valuable information was named Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi. From recent comments by his wife and deconstruction of his life, it would seem pretty evident that the doctor has a hatred for the US, and there was no way for the person to become a informant for the CIA. But in the world of intelligence, it is precisely such a person, who has no obvious sympathy for you, who can be turned and who provides the required information. It seems that the doctor even fooled his own family by pretending to go elsewhere (link to article):

The BBC’s Dale Gavlak, in Zarqa, Jordan, spoke to a family member who refused to be identified after being told to remain anonymous by the Jordanian authorities. He said Balawi had fooled them all about his intentions and his beliefs, telling his family he was travelling to Turkey to join his Turkish wife and children and continue his medical studies.
Balawi was reportedly recruited by Jordanian intelligence officials when he attempted to enter Gaza as part of a medical team last year. According to US media reports, he was a CIA double agent whose specific mission was tracking down al-Qaeda’s number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Internally, the US President is coming under huge strain; his fellow Democrats don’t support adding more troops to the Afghan war since it is highly unpopular with their base; the Republicans did not support his announcing of a deadline to commence withdrawal of troops. The biggest fear of everyone is that by announcing a date, the Taleban, which has been out of power for 8 years now and fighting the insurgency, can afford to wait 2 more years and then make the effort to overthrow Karzai when the US leaves. Pakistan would no longer be willing to invest in an effort to fight the Taleban if it sees the US disengaging from the area, and needs a friendly Afghanistan to counter India.
So now, you have US officials trying their best to persuade leaders from all over that the US has not announced a disengagement, that the withdrawal would only happen if the Afghan army and security services are in a good enough condition, and that the end date for the withdrawal is not decided. Further, the US would set up bases in the area to ensure that it retains a sizable balance. However, Obama is also being accused of making decisions based on politics by ensuring that a withdrawal is in place when he is fighting for re-election.

In the midst of all this, there were the elections that took place. These elections were fraught with allegations of fraud and malpractices, with the contender, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah claiming that Karzai had taken a number of steps to influence people to vote for him, and during the time of elections, there was voter fraud. These charges have been repeated often enough that the election was seen as disputed, even though Karzai claims that he won the election and there was no need for a runoff.
However, it now seems that Karzai has accepted that the election was not as straight forward as he initially stated, and that he has agreed to a run off (even though the article states that it was not easy to get Karzai to agree to a run off) (link to article):

It had been hard to get President Hamid Karzai to accept a run-off, he said. Earlier, there were indications that Mr Karzai and his rival Abdullah Abdullah were discussing a power-sharing deal. The UN meanwhile announced that 200 top officials who had allegedly been complicit in electoral fraud in August were being replaced.
In an interview with the BBC’s Lyse Doucet, Mr Eide admitted that there had been difficult days of discussion in Kabul to convince President Karzai to accept a second round vote on 7 November.

At such a time, the independent election commission is also undergoing turmoil, with the recent firing of the top deputy of the UN (Peter Galbraith) over allegations of voter fraud. An important member of the election commission, and a native Afghan, Judge Mustafa Barakzai, resigned from the commission claiming that his views were ignored (link to article):

Complaints of irregularities have dogged the presidential elections. The top United Nations official in Afghanistan, Kai Eide, admitted Sunday that the vote was marred by “widespread fraud.” Eide’s recently fired deputy Peter Galbraith told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Monday that Eide earlier refused to share details of voting irregularities with Afghan election officials. Galbraith also said his former boss could have prevented some fraud by closing unsecured polling stations.
With findings of the fraud complaints investigation upcoming, Galbraith said he anticipates the commission will determine that Afghan President Hamid Karzai will not have enough votes to avoid a runoff. “I think there’s a very strong likelihood that the election complaints commission will find that he’s below 50 percent, and then the question is whether Karzai will accept that decision and whether the Independent Election Commission, which is not independent but a pro-Karzai body, will accept that decision,” Galbraith said.

Now the situation in Afghanistan is that there are just not enough troops on the ground to support the cities, forget the countryside where the Taleban reigns supreme. The US military commander in Afghanistan (Gen. Stanley McChrystal), who was given charge earlier this year, has now asked for 40,000 – 60,000 troops more, making clear that less number of troops than that will lead to a defeat. Obama is already facing many of his own supporters who are asking for a reduction of troops from Afghanistan, or even a complete removal. It is difficult for him to add the number of troops requested, but any refusals (or even going with his veep’s half-baked proposal of less troops, and more missiles and UAV’s) will open him upto the charges of being weak on national security. And if the US now withdraws or reduces its presence, or allows the Taleban to control more territory, this will be a sign of weakness that the US cannot really exhibit, given that it has foes such as Al-Qaeda (and its linked organizations), enemy states such as Iran and North Korea. For these foes, a US withdrawal means that the US does not have the stomach to go in for fights, and is an open invitation to attack it closer to home. Obama needs to take the correct decision, looking into mind the long term, and disregarding the recent award of the Nobel Peace Prize to him.

Afghanistan has enacted a new legislation empowering men of Shia sect of Islam to deny their wives food and sustenance if they refuse to obey their husbands’ sexual demands, a media report said on Saturday. The new final draft of the legislation also grants guardianship of children exclusively to their fathers and grandfathers, and requires women to get permission from their husbands to work, The Guardian reported.

According to the report, the new law has been backed by the hardline Shia cleric Ayatollah Mohseni, who is thought to have influence over the voting intentions of some Shias, who make up around 20 per cent of the population. Karzai has assiduously courted such minority leaders in the run up to next Thursday’s election, which is likely to be close, a poll indicated.

Given that the President is now contesting for re-election as the President of Afghanistan, and Shia votes will also be important, it is doubtful whether this legislation will be so easily reversed; would be so ironic that a state supported by the West enshrines a massive gender bias.

Recently, a law was passed in Afghanistan for the minority Shia population that legalized rape within the marriage, allowing the husband to force the demand for sexual relationship within the marriage. The passage of this law outraged people all over, with women’s rights groups in Afghanistan protesting the passage of the law; more significantly, western backers of the Karzai Government were outraged and gave public statements demanding withdrawal of the law. All this pressure has finally resulted in a statement by the Afghan President that the law will be revised and brought into conformance with the Afghan constitution and with the Sharia (link to article):

# Afghan law appears to let a man to have sex with his wife even when she says “no”
# Karzai tells CNN he, others unaware of the provision due to the amount of legislation
Karzai told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria that he and others were unaware of the provision in the legislation, which he said “has so many articles.” Karzai signed the measure into law last month. “Now I have instructed, in consultation with clergy of the country, that the law be revised and any article that is not in keeping with the Afghan constitution and Islamic Sharia must be removed from this law,” Karzai said.
The bill languished in the country’s parliament for a year-and-a-half before it was recently pushed through in what one legislator called a “chaotic” vote. Women from various parts of Afghanistan marched in the capital Wednesday to protest the law, which has also been criticized by human-rights groups and Western leaders, including U.S. President Barack Obama.

For now, the measure has been beaten back, but measures to lift women’s rights will take time, and many reverses before they can take root, especially in a backward society such as in Afghanistan.

The United States has sent detainees back to different countries for legal processes in their countries, but given the history of China’s efforts against separatism in its Xinjiang province, there is a huge amount of belief that these detainees will be tortured if they are sent to China.

A federal appeals court on Wednesday temporarily blocked a judge’s decision to immediately free 17 Chinese Muslims at Guantanamo Bay into the U.S. In a one-page order, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued the emergency stay at the request of the Bush administration. The three-judge panel said it would postpone release of the detainees for at least another week to give the government more time to make arguments in the case. The appeals court set a deadline of next Thursday for additional filings but it is up to the judges to decide how quickly to act afterward.
Meanwhile, the Bush administration said it was continuing “heightened” efforts to find another country to accept the Uighurs, since the detainees might be tortured if they are turned over to China. “There are extensive efforts. We oppose the idea of their release here,” White House spokesman Tony Fratto said. The Justice Department criticized Urbina’s decision as undercutting immigration laws that dictate how foreigners should be brought into the country. It also cited security concerns over weapons training the Uighurs received at camps in Afghanistan. Such a potential security risk outweighs the inconvenience the detainees might suffer in waiting a while longer at Guantanamo, government lawyers contended.

In effect, since the detainees are not being accepted by any other country, and will not be sent to China, they have remained in prison for the last 4 years (after a determination that they can be released). The United States is also not willing to let them come into the country (from Guantanamo Bay where they are currently houses). A mighty complex issue.

What seems probable is that a decision has been taken whereby the extent of engagement has been decided. It would also be clear that there must have been tremendous US pressure on Pakistan to do more, or to stand aside and let US troops in (and also forego the massive financial support). It cannot be a coincidence that the last few days have seen a major escalation of the conflict between the Pakistani army and its own Taleban (even though the Pakistani army has lost a lot of its sheen in this conflict):

Missiles, believed to have been fired from US drone aircraft, killed as many as 21 people in one part of Pakistan’s tribal area yesterday. Pakistani intelligence officials said most of the dead were militants, but the attacks will aggravate strains between the two countries over American military assaults on targets in Pakistan. Pakistani officials said two villages in the North Waziristan area were hit just before dusk by the missiles. News reports identified 16 of the dead as “foreigners”, a term which usually describes fighters from Arab countries or Central Asia.
Pakistan’s military and civilian leaders have complained that missile attacks violate the country’s sovereignty and anger the local population, making it harder to crack down on the extremists. US commanders have spoken of respect for Pakistan’s sovereignty but have suggested they would not stop cross-border strikes on militants whom they suspect of aiding the Taliban insurgency across the border in Afghanistan.

These strikes are also hard for the Pakistani establishment to defend, but they must have calculated that this is a position that can be defended. Not letting the Americans do so otherwise would lead to a much major problem in terms of a confrontation with an enraged nation (the US has concluded that Pakistan under Musharraf did not live upto all its promises of acting against terror).