Word: kabul
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...Erdogan said Turkey was already "doing what it can" in Afghanistan, suggesting the Turks will resist Obama's call to commit more troops. Turkey has 1,750 soldiers in the Hindu Kush on a strictly humanitarian, noncombat mission that includes building roads and schools and patrolling Kabul. Ankara is wary of fighting fellow Muslims in a region with which it also has historic ties. "A midway solution could be for Turkey to increase its troops but not engage in warfare in southern provinces like Kandahar and Helmand," says Cengiz Candar, a commentator for the Radikal newspaper. (See pictures of Obama...
...President told the Wall Street Journal that Karzai opposes the surge; why won't he just wait us out? (But there's a counter-counter here as well: Isn't this just posturing? Doesn't Karzai know that without American protection, he could be swinging from a lamppost in Kabul like several of his predecessors?) And as for the argument, made passionately by some in the military, that a specific date for starting the withdrawal is an invitation for the Taliban to lie low until we leave: "They simply won't do that," says Leslie H. Gelb, former president...
...Suleimani has been active in Afghanistan as well, having visited Kabul several times. Mark Fowler of Persia House says the Quds Force has probably "been putting into place covert infrastructure and developing clandestine relationships aimed both at securing Iranian interests in Afghanistan as well as providing Iran with a capability to strike U.S. forces in the event it is [deemed] necessary...
...Iran can also use political levers against U.S. interests in Kabul. Dobbins points out that the Northern Alliance constituencies with which Tehran has strong connections - the Hazaras, Tajiks and Uzbeks - are also key support bases of Abdullah Abdullah, whom Karzai beat in this year's fraud-ridden election. "The most damaging thing that Iran could do would be to encourage these elements ... to cease supporting the [Karzai] government and essentially open a third front in the current civil war," he says...
...observers say that, in fact, the Pakistani military views the Afghan Taliban leadership and groups such as Hekmatyar's Hizb-e-Islami and the Haqqanis as a means of securing its interests in Afghanistan. "It's leverage in the sense that it allows them to have a government in Kabul that is neutral, if not pro-Pakistan," says Nawaz. "That's why they've always hedged on the Afghan Taliban...