Word: talibanizing
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...time, the Bush Administration and the Iranian regime were secretly cooperating in the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban. In February of that year, Iranian officials had given their U.S. counterparts photocopies of the passports of more than 200 Arabs - including Saad bin Laden - who had been turned away at the Afghan border. The Iranians worried that many of them would enter the country illegally through the porous border. Hillary Mann Leverett, then an official with the National Security Council and one of a handful of Americans involved in negotiations with Tehran, says the Iranians were concerned that...
Gates and Mullen face a raft of festering problems in Afghanistan: the Taliban and its allies are growing stronger, and they have killed 35 U.S. troops in the first three weeks of July - more than in any month since the U.S. invaded in October 2001. The Afghan government is salted with corruption, while its prisons are hellholes that turn citizens against their government. Pakistan remains a safe haven for launching attacks against U.S. and NATO troops in eastern Afghanistan, and despite the Obama Administration's strenuous efforts at persuasion, Islamabad shows little interest in extending its campaign against domestic extremism...
...turn the Afghan war around. Obama is dispatching an additional 21,000 U.S. troops there this year, bringing the total to 68,000 by 2010. His commanders recently ordered 4,000 Marines into Helmand province to begin the long process of "clear, hold and build" - driving the Taliban out of its strongholds, staying there to make sure the insurgents don't return and rebuilding civil institutions crushed by 30 years of war. (Read "A New General, and a New War, in Afghanistan...
...Cordesman writes, has been bungled since the U.S. launched it after the 9/11 attacks to punish the Taliban for sheltering Osama bin Laden. "Americans need to understand that the war has been critically under-resourced for seven years, almost totally because of U.S. decisions and mistakes," the report says. "This has been the key reason the insurgents have taken the initiative." He says the Pentagon should be ready to dispatch between three and six brigade combat teams (10,000 to 25,000 additional U.S. troops) over the coming year. "This is an American-led war, and large increases...
...Afghan army - now 86,000 strong with a goal of fielding 134,000 - actually needs 240,000 troopsk, and the 82,000-strong Afghan national police force needs to grow to 160,000, Cordesman says. And time is running out. "The situation has deteriorated into a crisis where the Taliban and other jihadist movements are now winning," he writes. "The steady deterioration of security has now reached the crisis level...