Kenneth Pollack has a few choice words for those who might be considering hanging a “mission accomplished” banner from an aircraft carrier over progress in Iraq:

Not so fast.

The former CIA analyst, now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and director of research at its Saban Center for Middle East Policy, joined a discussion at the progressive think tank’s Washington office on the state of Iraq and its neighbors, Afghanistan and Pakistan, as the U.S. presidential election heads into the fall stretch.

The future of the three countries – as well as that of Iran – are expected to dominate the foreign policy debate when Congress returns from the August recess. But to avert a “creeping triumphalism” on Iraq that coincides with the election and could undermine the country’s delicate security balance, and to address related concerns in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Pollack and fellow panelists Jeremy Shapiro, director of Brookings’ Center on the United States and Europe, and Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow at the Saban center, laid down a number of recommendations for congressional and administration officials in the near term.

“The war in Iraq is not won. There is still a tremendous amount to be done,” Pollack said.

While tremendous progress has been made since 2006, Americans need to come to grips with the risks that remain.

In Iraq, what many consider success — the surge plan outlined by Gen. David Petraeus, the new chief of U.S. Central Command, which included not just an increase in U.S. troops but also the “Anbar awakening” of Sunnis against al Qaeda and other strategic and tactical successes — was a solution to the first-order problems that followed the U.S. invasion, the ethno-sectarian war which allowed the insurgency to flourish.

Now, the United States and coalition partners need to deal with second-order problems that, though not as lethal, are still dangerous and could reignite ethno-sectarian violence. But the administration can’t put a time frame on success anymore than they can set a date for when the Iraqi people will begin to trust one another, or when their government will be strong enough to hold together without the glue of the American presence.

As an example of a second-order issue, the effort to defeat the Sunni insurgency left a community-policing group, the 100,000-strong Sons of Iraq, with an uncertain mission and distrustful of the Shi’a-dominated government, which has been reluctant to accept them into the national security establishment.

“That’s something that’s going to have to be remediated, and if that goes wrong, we could see the civil war reigniting,” Pollack said.

Meanwhile, the militias in Iraq are largely gone, having been absorbed into the Iraqi security forces, which in turn has lead to questions over where the loyalties of these former militia members lie.

Until a solution to such problems can be reached, the U.S. military must remain to prevent the fear that drove the civil war from returning to the population, Pollack said. In effect, the surge returned Iraq to where it might have been in 2003, before the insurgency began, had the United States entered with the right number of troops and the right approach to security.

As a result, Iraq’s fragile political system continues to face challenges that other Arab states have faced in their time, including a new military that is far more capable than the other institutions of government.

“That’s been a recipe for coups all across the Arab world,” Pollack said. Other potential developments under these circumstances include the development of a Vladmir Putin-style security state, because of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s popularity and control over the security forces, or a Yasser Arafat-style kleptocracy, he said.

However, for the first time, the Iraqi elections scheduled for later this year and at the end of next year could improve the government’s political stability, reducing fears of a resurrected insurgency and giving the United States the opportunity to draw down forces, Pollack said.

“The changes that are going on in Iraq and have broken Iraqi politics wide open in ways I don’t think have really been grasped on this side of the Atlantic,” Pollack said. “Iraqis are desperate for change, they are looking for new political parties. There are all kinds of new developments going on inside of Iraq, and Iraqis are looking for these elections to start moving them in the direction of a new politics, and the elections really do have the chance to bring that about.”

A potential U.S. military withdrawal, in turn, is linked to Afghanistan by limited personnel and resources available to each, Shapiro said.

However, securing Afghanistan could require between 300,000 or 600,000 troops, which is not in the offing from the international community.

What the West can try to do is provide the breathing space for the Afghan government to address its problems, which include the sanctuary provided to the Afghan insurgency in Pakistan, the weakness and corruption of the Afghan government, the growth of the drug trade and narco-economy, and the lack of civilian capacity from the international community, including poor coordination of international aid.

Combat troops don’t address these problems directly, Shapiro said. The rationale for an increased military presence seems more tactical than strategic, intended to improve local security, for example, by sealing the border with Pakistan.

There has already been a surge in troops, with NATO increasing its presence from about 30,000 to more than 50,000 troops this year, which has had an impact on a local level.

“We already have enough troops in place to achieve such local gains,” Shapiro said. “What we don’t have is the ability to follow up local gains with improvement in governance and security.”

The increased troop presence plays into Taliban propaganda and increases civilian casualties by pro-government forces. Afghans, he said, have begun to wonder why the International Security Assistance Force continues fighting only in Afghanistan and not Pakistan, from which the problems often stem.

A solution to these problems required different resources, he said, such as providing civilian assistance to deal with corruption, which is endemic at both the higher and lower levels of the Afghan government as well as in the international aid effort.

But clamping down on corruption at the higher levels is politically a difficult move.

“Afghans certainly blame us for corruption more than they blame us for insecurity because we are seen as in bed with the corrupt politicians in the Afghan government, and that certainly threatens the mission,” Shapiro said.

Other positive actions would be to increase food aid; develop security forces faster, including increasing military pay; provide more aid to communities, especially in stable areas, which are often ignored; and ensure that elections go well, which is an area where an increased troop presence would help.

Generally, expectations will need to be realistic; “On violence, Afghanistan is not going to be a peaceful country next year or 10 years from now,” Shapiro said. “On development, Afghanistan is the third-poorest country in the world. If we do development in Afghanistan well, in 20 years it might look like Pakistan. I think that’s about the most we can hope for, but that would be quite an achievement.”

What all of this demands, he said, is a need for “strategic patience,” which is in short supply in the capitals of North America and Europe, “but that says more about us and less about the situation on the ground in Afghanistan.”

However, Afghanistan’s No. 1 problem is Pakistan, the panel said.

According to Reidel, Pakistan is the most dangerous country in world.

“Every nightmare that worries Americans about the 21st century comes together in Pakistan in a unique and combustible way,” he said.

Consider these facts, he said: Pakistan is the fifth-largest country in world, the second-largest Muslim country, has as many as 50 to 200 nuclear weapons, and is the No. 1 nuclear proliferator in history, providing assistance to North Korea, Iran, Libya and possibly a nascent Saudi Arabian nuclear program.

Pakistan also is a conduit for drugs, Reidel said: If 90 percent of the world’s heroin is grown in Afghanistan, almost all of it goes through the port of Karachi.

And, Reidel said, Pakistan is both a victim and state sponsor of terrorism, and has been for the last quarter century, not to mention being the current headquarters of al Qaeda.

The big problem is that America’s sense of urgency hasn’t been matched by the Pakistani government. The country has been “stuck in neutral,” Reidel said, rejecting a military dictatorship for democracy but achieving a combination of both, and thus neither.

Meanwhile, the Pakistani army and intelligence service runs circles around the civilian government, and while Pakistan’s politics are frozen on the future of the country’s judiciary, corrupt military leaders aren’t brought to justice.

Successive U.S. administrations, on the other hand, have supported military dictators, Pervez Musharraf being only the latest of a long string. While our leverage of $11 billion in aid seems formidable, Pakistan’s leverage over the United States takes the form of logistical supply lines, which go through Pakistan’s ports to Afghanistan and Iraq.

Reidel recommended that Pakistani politicians describe where they’re taking the country, that they bring more accountability to their government, for example, by bringing corrupt military leaders to justice, and that the United States stand clearly with the country’s new democratic leadership, warts and all, and avoid trying to take short cuts by appealing to the ISI or army in a pinch.

Most importantly, he said, the United States and the international community need to see the broad picture of how Pakistan is tied to strategic success in Afghanistan and take a regional approach.

Matt Korade can be reached at mkorade@cq.com.