Word: nato
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...Taliban is telling Afghans that history will eventually repeat itself and that NATO will go the way of all foreign armies in Afghanistan. That's why breaking the Taliban's stride by inflicting some painful battlefield defeats appears to be the key strategic goal of Gates' Afghanistan surge, in which combat brigades comprising some 12,000 troops will be added to the 36,000 currently deployed there. Those troops will be used to strengthen the approaches to some of the country's major cities and to go toe-to-toe with insurgents in the south and east in order...
President Hamid Karzai may have been installed and may be maintained in power by the U.S. and its NATO allies, but the relationship between them continues to sour - and that could have significant consequences for the Obama Administration's plans to win the war in Afghanistan. Thursday's announcement postponing Afghanistan's presidential election from April to August means that Karzai will remain in office as a new U.S. plan for Afghanistan goes into effect, even though U.S. and NATO commanders have long warned that the rampant corruption and inefficiency of the Karzai government are undermining the war effort. NATO...
...emulating his Iraqi counterparts by pushing back against those who brought him to power, but it's a far trickier game for Karzai, who lacks the alternatives available to an Iraqi government that remains close to Iran. Right now, Karzai's physical survival depends largely on the NATO presence...
...meanwhile, is mindful of the growing burden that results from the Taliban's resurgence and the reluctance of NATO allies to boost their own troop levels in Afghanistan. That's why Gates is calling for a revision of what he called "overly ambitious" nation-building goals, stressing that he sees the prime U.S. objective in Afghanistan as preventing the country from being used as a base for terrorists. The question facing Washington, of course, is whether Karzai is indispensable to the achievement of that goal...
...doesn't mean you abandon it," he argues. Rather, you "reinforce and update" it. Initially, he says, that would mean sending more soldiers and money. Others wonder whether the U.N. is doing not too little but too much and is in danger of falling into the same trap as NATO in Afghanistan and the U.S. in Iraq: the more robust the mission, the harder it is to leave. Alex de Waal, program director at the Social Science Research Council, warns, "When you move to coercive peacekeeping, you're no longer neutral. You cannot expect to be treated above and beyond...