Word: talibans
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...abandon the Bush Administration's effort to press reluctant European allies to admit Ukraine and Georgia into NATO. But Russia also has a direct interest in the outcome in Afghanistan. Moscow has made clear that a NATO failure in Afghanistan would be a disaster for Moscow, because a Taliban victory would spur an Islamist challenge all along Russia's southern flank. Better to have NATO stop the jihadists than to have to rely on Russian troops...
...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...
...Karzai, of course, may simply be grandstanding with a view to bolstering his support ahead of the election. It was rescheduled, after all, because security conditions preclude holding a credible poll, and unless the Taliban is rolled back in much of the south and east of the country, even an August poll would remain in doubt - despite the fact that Karzai's term of office ends in May. But the criticisms he raises resonate with much of the Afghan public, which is particularly angered by air strikes that often inflict civilian casualties. Arming local warlords to fight the Taliban, Karzai...
...Until now, the U.S. mission in Afghanistan has been about propping up the Karzai government and security forces and beating back the Taliban. Plainly, that strategy has been failing, and Washington and Karzai appear to have different ideas about how to fix it. The Afghan President may seek to appear as if he's 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...
...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...