Вы находитесь на странице: 1из 2

A dangerous Afghanistan strategy

Pakistanis react to the planned deployment of


additional American troops in Afghanistan.
Thursday, December 10, 2009

Digg
submit

Obama’s new Afghanistan strategy is doomed to failure, said Mosharraf Zaidi in


the Islamabad, Pakistan, News. His plan to send 30,000 more troops, which he
announced last week, focuses only on Afghan territory. But it is here in Pakistan
that the militants keep their bases. In his speech announcing the surge, Obama
pretended this was no problem. He claimed that Pakistani public opinion had
turned against extremists and that there was “no doubt” that the United States and
Pakistan “share a common enemy.” In reality, Pakistani military and intelligence
services don’t believe that for a minute. In their minds, “Pakistan’s enemies are
those terrorists that are killing Pakistanis. America’s enemies are those that are
killing Americans.” These are different groups, and Pakistan is going after only one
of them. Obama apparently thinks he can continue the Bush strategy of trying “to
buy, coerce, or cajole Pakistan’s military and political elite into doing things that
they consider suicidal.” It won’t work.

Obama doesn’t really care about that, because he has already given up, said retired
Pakistani Gen. Mirza Aslam Beg, also in the News. The key feature of Obama’s
new plan for Afghanistan isn’t the troop surge, or even the effort to bolster its civil
society, but the exit strategy. By insisting that there be an end date to U.S.
involvement, Obama essentially acknowledged that “the underlying idea is not to
win the war, but to ensure a safe exit.” If Obama really wanted to defeat the
Taliban and the other insurgent groups, he would commit far more than the
30,000 troops he promised, and for a longer period of time. Instead, he’s sending
a token force. The pretense at a last great push is “meant to cover the shame of
defeat, which is difficult for a superpower to admit.”

“Retreat is the reality,” said Khalid Iqbal in the Islamabad Nation. It’s just too bad
that Obama had to cover it with a useless influx of troops. The surge will cost some

1 of 2
$45 billion, and it will result only in the spilling of more “innocent blood.” Such a
sum would be vastly more useful were it “spent on the economic rehabilitation and
uplift of the affected areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan.” As it is, Pakistan will
have to brace for another “influx of refugees, including a significant number of
hardened extremist fighters and terrorists,” as the Americans pound away at
Afghanistan one last time.

It’ll be even worse for us after the Americans leave, said Cyril Almeida in the
Karachi, Pakistan, Dawn. The surge “is the last chance saloon.” If it fails, it is
Pakistan that will have to live with an unstable neighbor ruled by the Taliban. Our
border will be “the stamping ground of all kinds of militants, headlined by al
Qaida,” and some of those militants will turn their guns on Pakistanis. If our
country becomes unstable, the U.S. will be back. And “whatever the Americans will
choose to do then, it won’t be pretty—and it definitely will not enhance Pakistan’s
interests or stability.”

2 of 2

Вам также может понравиться