Word: afghan
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Despite the impatience of his generals, President Barack Obama has good reason for taking his time over deciding whether to send more U.S. troops to Afghanistan. Right now, Washington's strategy is missing one key component: a legitimate Afghan President deemed worth defending...
...first time. I'm told the Secretaries of both State and Defense and National Security Adviser Jim Jones warily favor the military's request for more troops. But Vice President Joe Biden and, perhaps, the President remain skeptics - and rightly so, since any military policy depends on whether the Afghan government can regain some credibility after the flagrantly corrupt August elections. If Hamid Karzai limps into a second term but does not make some major reforms - like removing his brother from power in Kandahar province - we will not have the legitimate local government that the military's counterinsurgency strategy requires...
...Afghan election mess will probably be resolved in the next month. If a runoff election is required, it will be held before winter - just about the time health care is decided in Congress, which brings us back to Kerry's observation. These issues are linked. If Obama wins health care, he will have the political capital to move any way he wishes on Afghanistan - with the military, or against...
...Westerwelle, the leader of the Free Democrats (FDP) and a possible replacement for Steinmeier as Foreign Minister after the elections, have all indicated a desire to see an orderly end to the German deployment. Any new government faces the same problem of balancing the deepening unpopularity of Germany's Afghan mission back home with the increasing demands from other NATO members for Germany to pull its weight...
...Zazi met or trained with terrorists along the Afghan-Pakistan border, any insights we glean could add considerably to our ever expanding base of knowledge on al-Qaeda or other terrorist groups," says a U.S. counterterrorism official. "That's a good thing for us and very bad thing for our enemies...