In the hushed, carefully calibrated world of diplomacy, it’s a rare thing when a senior general decides to tear up the script. But that’s precisely what Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, the man who speaks for the Pakistani military, did in a recent, landmark interview. This wasn’t a routine press briefing, filled with the usual polite fictions. This was a statement of profound national concern, a bracing and unvarnished assessment of a security landscape on fire. In doing so, he has put a series of sharp, unavoidable questions on the table for the world—and most pointedly, for the men who rule in Kabul.

For forty long years, Pakistan has carried the crushing weight of the Afghan refugee crisis, a direct consequence of foreign invasions and the civil wars that followed. The General’s point was simple but devastating: the original reasons for offering sanctuary are gone. Islamabad has stretched its humanitarian goodwill to the breaking point,........

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