From: Brahma
An Afghanistan 'Surge' Is a Losing Battle
So why is Mr. Obama betting on it?
By BRAHMA CHELLANEY | From Wall Street Journal, January 9, 2009
Vice President-elect Joe Biden's visit to Afghanistan this month -- even before President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration -- will underscore the new administration's priority to ending the war there. But their planned "surge first, then negotiate" strategy isn't likely to work.
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In seeking short-term success, the Obama team is falling prey to a long-standing U.S. policy weakness: The pursuit of narrow objectives without much regard for the security of friends. Perhaps India, America's strategic partner, could be of help. After all, as the recent Mumbai terrorist assaults show, it's India that is bearing the brunt of the blowback from failed U.S. policies in the Afghanistan-Pakistan belt. Perhaps New Delhi should be on Mr. Biden's next travel itinerary.
Mr. Chellaney is a professor of strategic studies at the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123143672297764875.html
1 comment:
Brahma is right I am afraid; though the yanks may chose to remain in order to prevent more Chinese power projection in Central Asia. I also suspect that Russia may not be content to have the Yanks to fail in Afghanistan - as it seemed to in Iraq.
A lot of people - India included - actually benefit from NATO keeping the Taliban tied down in Afghanistan. Take NATO away and you will have Chechnya and Kashmir flare up again - and the assorted central-asian thugs doing deals with Islamists.
long term though - this "surge, bribe and run" is destined to fail. ( Dr. C may have reused this catch-phrase - though the original idea is his)
we will pay the price for this yankee escalation-to-exit - just as we paid the price for the Soviet escalation-to-exit in Afghanistan. USSR left Afghanistan in the spring-summer of 1989 - in the winter of the same year we nearly lost Kashmir to Islamic terrorism.
What is India doing to ensure that Pakistan is tied up in it's own knots when America quits? We have a very small - and rapidly diminishing window - to make sure that these vermin are fighting each other instead of butchering innocent Indians - er Hindus - I forgot they left the Muslims and Italians alone
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