obama promised troop withdrawl from Afghanistan this year

US President Barack Obama said Tuesday night that tough fighting lies ahead in Afghanistan but renewed his commitment to begin withdrawing US troops this year.
In his prime time State of the Union address to Congress, Obama said the troop buildup he ordered has stripped the Taliban of strongholds in Afghanistan. He said the United States and coalition partners will work to prevent the militants from “re-establishing a stranglehold” on the country and will keep pressure on terrorist network al-Qaeda.
International forces will continue the transition to an Afghan lead in providing security and stability, and US forces will begin drawing down in July, Obama said. Prevailing in Afghanistan is among Obama’s top foreign priorities.
“There will be tough fighting ahead, and the Afghan government will need to deliver better governance,” Obama said. “But we are strengthening the capacity of the Afghan people and building an enduring partnership with them.”More

New London play looks at roots of Afghan conflict

LONDON: A new play uses the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the Cold War “Great Game” it triggered, to look at why the West is mired in seemingly endless conflict there today.
Blood and Gifts”, by U.S. playwright J.T. Rogers, has opened at London’s National Theatre and won strong early reviews for its dramatic analysis of what has gone wrong in Afghanistan.

Rogers, who wrote Rwandan drama “The Overwhelming” which appeared at the same theatre in 2006, said he opted for a behind-the-scenes look at the 1980s conflict, rather than a recreation of the fighting.

“It is more about safehouses, embassies and CIA headquarters in Washington DC,” Rogers told Reuters in an interview just before the play opened.more

Nato Succumbs to pak pressure

ISLAMABAD: Nato reversed its position on aerial strikes by its helicopter gunships inside Pakistan on Monday after Islamabad warned the US-led forces in Afghanistan of counter-measure
s. International Security Assistance Force (Isaf), which had earlier defended the aerial engagement as an action ‘under the right of self-defence’, later in the evening, according to military sources, informed Pakistani commanders that they were trying to establish that their helicopters during the operation did not cross into Pakistani territory.
The strongly-worded protest communicated by Pakistan to Nato headquarters in Brussels reminded the military alliance that its mandate for operations in Afghanistan ended at Afghan border and there were no hot pursuit rules agreed with Pakistan.

Describing the cross-border air raids as ‘violation of its sovereignty and the UN mandate for coalition operations in Afghanistan’, the protest statement issued by the Foreign Office said: “In the absence of immediate corrective measures, Pakistan will be constrained to consider response options.”more

Obama’s Move: Iran and Afghanistan

By George Friedman
During the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign, now-U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said that like all U.S. presidents, Barack Obama would face a foreign policy test early in his presidency if elected. That test is now here.

His test comprises two apparently distinct challenges, one in Afghanistan and one in Iran. While different problems, they have three elements in common. First, they involve the question of his administration’s overarching strategy in the Islamic world. Second, the problems are approaching decision points (and making no decision represents a decision here). And third, they are playing out very differently than Obama expected during the 2008 campaign.

During the campaign, Obama portrayed the Iraq war as a massive mistake diverting the United States from Afghanistan, the true center of the “war on terror.” He accordingly promised to shift the focus away from Iraq and back to Afghanistan. Obama’s views on Iran were more amorphous. He supported the doctrine that Iran should not be permitted to obtain nuclear weapons, while at the same time asserted that engaging Iran was both possible and desirable. Embedded in the famous argument over whether offering talks without preconditions was appropriate (something now-U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton attacked him for during the Democratic primary) was the idea that the problem with Iran stemmed from Washington’s refusal to engage in talks with Tehran.

We are never impressed with campaign positions, or with the failure of the victorious candidate to live up to them. That’s the way American politics work. But in this case, these promises have created a dual crisis that Obama must make decisions about now.

Iran

Back in April, in the midst of the financial crisis, Obama reached an agreement at the G-8 meeting that the Iranians would have until Sept. 24 and the G-20 meeting to engage in meaningful talks with the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany (P-5+1) or face intensely increased sanctions. His administration was quite new at the time, so the amount of thought behind this remains unclear. On one level, the financial crisis was so intense and September so far away that Obama and his team probably saw this as a means to delay a secondary matter while more important fires were flaring up.

But there was more operating than that. Obama intended to try to bridge the gap between the Islamic world and the United States between April and September. In his speech to the Islamic world from Cairo, he planned to show a desire not only to find common ground, but also to acknowledge shortcomings in U.S. policy in the region. With the appointment of special envoys George Mitchell (for Israel and the Palestinian territories) and Richard Holbrooke (for Pakistan and Afghanistan), Obama sought to build on his opening to the Islamic world with intense diplomatic activity designed to reshape regional relationships.

It can be argued that the Islamic masses responded positively to Obama’s opening — it has been asserted to be so and we will accept this — but the diplomatic mission did not solve the core problem. Mitchell could not get the Israelis to move on the settlement issue, and while Holbrooke appears to have made some headway on increasing Pakistan’s aggressiveness toward the Taliban, no fundamental shift has occurred in the Afghan war.

Most important, no major shift has occurred in Iran’s attitude toward the United States and the P-5+1 negotiating group. In spite of Obama’s Persian New Year address to Iran, the Iranians did not change their attitude toward the United States. The unrest following Iran’s contested June presidential election actually hardened the Iranian position. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad remained president with the support of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, while the so-called moderates seemed powerless to influence their position. Perceptions that the West supported the demonstrations have strengthened Ahmadinejad’s hand further, allowing him to paint his critics as pro-Western and himself as an Iranian nationalist.

But with September drawing to a close, talks have still not begun. Instead, they will begin Oct. 1. And last week, the Iranians chose to announce that not only will they continue work on their nuclear program (which they claim is not for military purposes), they have a second, hardened uranium enrichment facility near Qom. After that announcement, Obama, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy held a press conference saying they have known about the tunnel for several months, and warned of stern consequences.

This, of course, raises the question of what consequences. Obama has three choices in this regard.

First, he can impose crippling sanctions against Iran. But that is possible only if the Russians cooperate. Moscow has the rolling stock and reserves to supply all of Iran’s fuel needs if it so chooses, and Beijing can also remedy any Iranian fuel shortages. Both Russia and China have said they don’t want sanctions; without them on board, sanctions are meaningless.

Second, Obama can take military action against Iran, something easier politically and diplomatically for the United States to do itself rather than rely on Israel. By itself, Israel cannot achieve air superiority, suppress air defenses, attack the necessary number of sites and attempt to neutralize Iranian mine-laying and anti-ship capability all along the Persian Gulf. Moreover, if Israel struck on its own and Iran responded by mining the Strait of Hormuz, the United States would be drawn into at least a naval war with Iran — and probably would have to complete the Israeli airstrikes, too.

And third, Obama could choose to do nothing (or engage in sanctions that would be the equivalent of doing nothing). Washington could see future Iranian nuclear weapons as an acceptable risk. But the Israelis don’t, meaning they would likely trigger the second scenario. It is possible that the United States could try to compel Israel not to strike — though it’s not clear whether Israel would comply — something that would leave Obama publicly accepting Iran’s nuclear program.

And this, of course, would jeopardize Obama’s credibility. It is possible for the French or Germans to waffle on this issue; no one is looking to them for leadership. But for Obama simply to acquiesce to Iranian nuclear weapons, especially at this point, would have significant diplomatic and domestic political ramifications. Simply put, Obama would look weak — and that, of course, is why the Iranians announced the second nuclear site. They read Obama as weak, and they want to demonstrate their own resolve. That way, if the Russians were thinking of cooperating with the United States on sanctions, Moscow would be seen as backing the weak player against the strong one. The third option, doing nothing, therefore actually represents a significant action.

Afghanistan

In a way, the same issue is at stake in Afghanistan. Having labeled Afghanistan as critical — indeed, having campaigned on the platform that the Bush administration was fighting the wrong war — it would be difficult for Obama to back down in Afghanistan. At the same time, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, has reported that without a new strategy and a substantial increase in troop numbers, failure in Afghanistan is likely.

The number of troops being discussed, 30,000-40,000, would bring total U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan to just above the number of troops the Soviet Union deployed there in its war (just under 120,000) — a war that ended in failure. The new strategy being advocated would be one in which the focus would not be on the defeat of the Taliban by force of arms, but the creation of havens for the Afghan people and protecting those havens from the Taliban.

A move to the defensive when time is on your side is not an unreasonable strategy. But it is not clear that time is on Western forces’ side. Increased offensives are not weakening the Taliban. But halting attacks and assuming that the Taliban will oblige the West by moving to the offensive, thereby opening itself to air and artillery strikes, probably is not going to happen. And while assuming that the country will effectively rise against the Taliban out of the protected zones the United States has created is interesting, it does not strike us as likely. The Taliban is fighting the long war because it has nowhere else to go. Its ability to maintain military and political cohesion following the 2001 invasion has been remarkable. And betting that the Pakistanis will be effective enough to break the Taliban’s supply lines is hardly the most prudent bet.

In short, Obama’s commander on the ground has told him the current Afghan strategy is failing. He has said that unless that strategy changes, more troops won’t help, and that a change of strategy will require substantially more troops. But when we look at the proposed strategy and the force levels, it is far from obvious that even that level of commitment will stand a chance of achieving meaningful results quickly enough before the forces of Washington’s NATO allies begin to withdraw and U.S. domestic resolve erodes further.

Obama has three choices in Afghanistan. He can continue to current strategy and force level, hoping to prolong failure long enough for some undefined force to intervene. He can follow McChrystal’s advice and bet on the new strategy. Or he can withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan. Once again, doing nothing — the first option — is doing something quite significant.

The Two Challenges Come Together

The two crises intermingle in this way: Every president is tested in foreign policy, sometimes by design and sometimes by circumstance. Frequently, this happens at the beginning of his term as a result of some problem left by his predecessor, a strategy adopted in the campaign or a deliberate action by an antagonist. How this happens isn’t important. What is important is that Obama’s test is here. Obama at least publicly approached the presidency as if many of the problems the United States faced were due to misunderstandings about or the thoughtlessness of the United States. Whether this was correct is less important than that it left Obama appearing eager to accommodate his adversaries rather than confront them.

No one has a clear idea of Obama’s threshold for action.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban takes the view that the British and Russians left, and that the Americans will leave, too. We strongly doubt that the force level proposed by McChrystal will be enough to change their minds. Moreover, U.S. forces are limited, with many still engaged in Iraq. In any case, it isn’t clear what force level would suffice to force the Taliban to negotiate or capitulate — and we strongly doubt that there is a level practical to contemplate.

In Iran, Ahmadinejad clearly perceives that challenging Obama is low-risk and high reward. If he can finally demonstrate that the United States is unwilling to take military action regardless of provocations, his own domestic situation improves dramatically, his relationship with the Russians deepens, and most important, his regional influence — and menace — surges. If Obama accepts Iranian nukes without serious sanctions or military actions, the American position in the Islamic world will decline dramatically. The Arab states in the region rely on the United States to protect them from Iran, so U.S. acquiescence in the face of Iranian nuclear weapons would reshape U.S. relations in the region far more than a hundred Cairo speeches.

There are four permutations Obama might choose in response to the dual crisis. He could attack Iran and increase forces in Afghanistan, but he might well wind up stuck in a long-term war in Afghanistan. He could avoid that long-term war by withdrawing from Afghanistan and also ignore Iran’s program, but that would leave many regimes reliant on the United States for defense against Iran in the lurch. He could increase forces in Afghanistan and ignore Iran — probably yielding the worst of all possible outcomes, namely, a long-term Afghan war and an Iran with a nuclear program if not nuclear weapons.

On pure logic, history or politics aside, the best course is to strike Iran and withdraw from Afghanistan. That would demonstrate will in the face of a significant challenge while perhaps reshaping Iran and certainly avoiding a drawn-out war in Afghanistan. Of course, it is easy for those who lack power and responsibility — and the need to govern — to provide logical choices. But the forces closing in on Obama are substantial, and there are many competing considerations in play.

Presidents eventually arrive at the point where something must be done, and where doing nothing is very much doing something. At this point, decisions can no longer be postponed, and each choice involves significant risk. Obama has reached that point, and significantly, in his case, he faces a double choice. And any decision he makes will reverberate

www.stratfor.com

The Strategic Debate Over Afghanistan

By George Friedman

After U.S. airstrikes killed scores of civilians in western Afghanistan this past week, White House National Security Adviser Gen. James L. Jones said the United States would continue with the airstrikes and would not tie the hands of U.S. generals fighting in Afghanistan. At the same time, U.S. Central Command chief Gen. David Petraeus has cautioned against using tactics that undermine strategic U.S. goals in Afghanistan — raising the question of what exactly are the U.S. strategic goals in Afghanistan. A debate inside the U.S. camp has emerged over this very question, the outcome of which is likely to determine the future of the region.

On one side are President Barack Obama, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and a substantial amount of the U.S. Army leadership. On the other side are Petraeus — the architect of U.S. strategy in Iraq after 2006 — and his staff and supporters. An Army general — even one with four stars — is unlikely to overcome a president and a defense secretary; even the five-star Gen. Douglas MacArthur couldn’t pull that off. But the Afghan debate is important, and it provides us with a sense of future U.S. strategy in the region. Read more

US needs Pak-Afghan help to identify moderate Taliban

WASHINGTON: Pakistan and Afghanistan can help the United States in approaching those Taliban activists who may have moderate views and are willing to lay down their arms, says US National Security Adviser Gen. James Jones.

In a rare, exclusive interview to Dawn, Gen. Jones also stressed the need for a greater cooperation between Pakistan and Afghanistan in the fight against terrorists and said that President Barack Obama’s new strategy offers new hopes for peace and security in the South Asian region.

‘Surely the Pakistani people and Afghan people know more than we do,’ said Gen. Jones when asked how the US would approach the moderates among the Taliban that President Obama says could be included in the peace process.

‘And they can certainly help us in identifying those who are moderate in their views and wish to be participating in the political process,’ said the US national security adviser when asked whether Washington would directly approach the moderate Taliban or would include Pakistan and Afghanistan in this effort.

Explaining who he believed were the moderates, Gen. Jones said those who were willing to participate in the political process ‘without violence and without terror and without causing breaches in the security of either country.

‘And so I think that as we work towards identifying those people who wish to enter into a peaceful dialogue, political dialogue, there’s certainly room on the table for them.’

Asked what’s new in President Obama’s new strategy for the people of Pakistan, especially when drone attacks have continued unabated, Gen. Jones said: ‘What’s new is a regional focus. There has been a tendency in the past to deal with Pakistan and Afghanistan as separate issues. By appointing Ambassador Richard Holbrooke as a regional representative, the US is signaling a more comprehensive strategy.’

The US official pointed out that trouble in the border areas were of concern to both countries and should be dealt with accordingly.

In the new strategy, he said, President Obama also has indicated that the US would like to be helpful to its Pakistani friends and wanted to do whatever it could to be supportive of the government’s efforts.

The new strategy, he said, focuses on the real threat, al-Qaeda. ‘Al-Qaeda, whether it is in the border regions, in Pakistan or in Afghanistan, is the real enemy here. It is an enemy to the Pakistani people, it is an enemy to the Afghan people and to people here in the US and people all over the world.’

Gen. Jones said that when President Obama announced a direct aid package of $1.5 billion a year for five years, this was meant to reassure the Pakistani people that the US was committed to bringing peace and security to their country.

Read More…

Pakistan military allying with Taliban

By: Tufail Ahmad

n

In the recent months, an old-new alliance has been re-emerging between the Taliban and Pakistan, aimed at countering the efforts of the U.S. and NATtroops against the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Pakistani authorities recently signed twagreements with the Taliban – known as the “Shari’a for Peace deals” – which give the movement full authority tenforce the Shari’a law in the Swat Valley and broader Malakand region of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP). The Taliban’s part of the deal amounts tnmore than an unwritten – and largely unfulfilled – promise tstop fighting the government forces in the area.

The deals come in the wake of three operations carried out by the Pakistani military against the Taliban in the last three years – operations in which the military conspicuously refrained from causing the movement significant harm or from killing its leaders.

The apparent capitulation of the Pakistani authorities tthe demands of the Taliban is actually a part of a long-standing alliance between them. The Pakistani military – which actually formed the Taliban in the 1990s – has long been using this movement tcontrol Afghanistan and as a tool in its confrontation with the West. The Taliban, for its part, uses the support and protection of Pakistan tconsolidate its strength and gain control over increasingly large areas in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The first Shari’a for Peace deal was signed February 16, 2009 between the Pakistani authorities and the Taliban “moderates” led by Maulana Fazlullah’s father-in-law, Sufi Muhammad. [6] The latter had been incarcerated in a Pakistani prison, but was released in April 2008 precisely for the purpose of facilitating a deal between the authorities and the Taliban. [7]

On March 5, 2009, the Pakistani authorities signed a second agreement with the Taliban, giving it even more power tregulate day-to-day life in the Swat Valley district. The second deal included the following clauses: [10]

Steps will be taken tend “obscenity” and “vulgarity.”
Music centers and shops selling “obscene CDs” will be closed.
Shops and markets will be closed during prayer times.
A campaign will be launched traise public awareness t”social evils.”
Arrangements will be made for teaching Koran in prisons and for prison reforms.

Read More….

Obama Afgh-Pak Policy Already Unraveling

Delhi, India. United States President Barack Hussein Obama unveiled his much awaited South Asian strategy in a globally televised speech last night (Indian time). Today many Indians told me, as one put it, that Obama “lived up to his middle name by showing the face of a pro-Pakistan US policy,” a critical component of which that policy is to find “moderate Taliban” with whom the United States and its allies can negotiate a peace. Imagine if in 1942, Franklin Roosevelt said the US was going to look for moderate Nazis who could negotiate peace. Americans would have been outraged then, and history would show the policy to have been a calamitous mistake. Fortunately, we do not have to wait for the passage of history since those moderate Taliban have already provided evidence that the policy is terribly flawed. Read more

Danish soldiers negotiating with Afghan Taliban: report

Copenhagen (AFP)
Danish soldiers in Afghanistan have begun negotiating with the Taliban to try to break the deadlock there, a newspaper reported Monday, as a poll suggested most Danes considered the war unwinnable.
Troops had holding talks with the Taliban as wiping out the insurgency was proving so difficult, a Danish officer told the Jyllands-Posten daily.

“We have already held several meetings with local chiefs where the Taliban were represented,” Lieutenant Colonel Bjarne Hoejgaard told the paper after a six-month mission in Afghanistan.

“We cannot get around it. We must intensify the dialogue and the negotiations with the Taliban if we want to have peace in Afghanistan, because we cannot eliminate the enemy,” he added.

Hoejgaard insisted the meetings were not about negotiating a truce with the most extreme elements, but were aimed at creating more security for Danish soldiers by entering into dialogue with more moderate, local Taliban.

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Afghan incursion was wrong: ex-general

MOSCOW, Feb 15: Russia on Sunday marked the 20th anniversary of the Soviet pullout from Afghanistan, haunted by its catastrophic war against Mujahideen and convinced the trauma harbours lessons for western forces today.

On Feb 15, 1989 the last Soviet soldier left Afghanistan, ending a war that Moscow initially saw as a brief incursion to bolster its Afghan supporters but became a protracted and bloody struggle that lasted almost 10 years.

The war, which cost over 13,000 Soviet lives and may have killed as many as one million Afghans, led to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban.

“We did not expect the war to turn out like it did. We had the wrong strategy maybe. We shouldn’t have taken our troops there,” said Ruslan Aushev, a highly decorated veteran and lieutenant-general in the conflict.

“At a certain moment we made a military mistake that led to a political mistake,” said Aushev, who went on to become president of the Russian republic of Ingushetia.

The last Soviet soldier to leave was the commander of its forces in Afghanistan, Lt-Gen Boris Gromov, who crossed the Friendship Bridge across the Amu Darya (river) into Soviet Uzbekistan at midday on Feb 15.

“I am convinced of one thing. That it is irresponsible to forget about lessons like Afghanistan,” Gromov, a hero of the USSR and now governor of the Moscow region, told the Rossiskaya Gazeta daily.—AFP
Read More…

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