Afghanistan Experts React to Afghanistan Strategy Review Posted by Adam Blickstein

Today, NSN held a conference call examining President Obama's Afghanistan and Pakistan strategy review with Amb. James Dobbins, former Special Envoy to Afghanistan and director of International Security at RAND, as well as Alex Thier, director of the Future of Afghanistan Project at the United States Institute of Peace who just returned from the region. Below are some quotes from the call, and full audio can be heard here. NSN's broader analysis of the strategy can be found here.

Amb. James Dobbins: "I thought Obama’s presentation and the material that’s been put out by the White House was trying to do two things simultaneously. One, it tried to refine and somewhat narrow our rationale for our engagement in Afghanistan, while on other hand, actually, significantly expanding the effort. So there’s going to be more troops, more money, more civilians, more aid for Pakistan, more pressure on Afghanistan and Pakistan to implement reforms, and an effort to get more of an international focus, but as the President stressed, with a fairly narrow rationale in mind...One innovation, if you will, as compared to the Bush Administration strategy...was the more explicit linking of Afghanistan and Pakistan, more explicitly acknowledge of the dimensions of the problem in Pakistan, and a commitment to expand assistant to, and put pressure on, Pakistan and to make that an international priority, and that is an advance over where we were a few months ago."

Alex Thier:  "The first thing that I think we are seeing, really for the first time since 2001, is a right sizing of the effort in Afghanistan, and now Pakistan, to meet the goals.  In many ways this is sort of the looking glass version of the what the Bush Administration did, which had very high flown rhetoric about Marshall Plans and nation-building, and yet dramatically under resourced every aspect of that, both from military, civilian, and political. What this strategy is doing, in some ways, is redefining the objectives, to say what the ultimate United States goal in Afghanistan and Pakistan is first and foremost a security goal. But the way we achieve that security goal is by creating a stable Afghanistan and a stable Pakistan embedded in region with neighbors that are cooperative, rather than hostile."

Comments

[sikander Hayat]

I think what Obama is doing by putting more forces on the ground is to escalate the war initially and put pressure on the insurgents and then bribe people away from Taliban. This is classic stick and carrot policy and how much it will succeed; only time will tell.

Another very important aspect is the increase in Afghan national army from 80000 to 134000. I believe that this is most important aspect of his speech as a strong central force will definitely have some impact on the overall situation. If the situation in Afghanistan stabilise to the extent that local army takes charge of the situation (even if the Taliban are not totally defeated) and foreign forces leave than situation in Pakistan will cool down as well.

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By Sikander Hayat

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Another very important aspect is the increase in Afghan national army from 80000 to 134000. I believe that this is most important aspect of his speech as a strong central force will definitely have some impact on the overall situation. If the situation in Afghanistan stabilise to the extent that local army takes charge of the situation (even if the Taliban are not totally defeated) and foreign forces leave than situation in Pakistan will cool down as well

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Another very important aspect is the increase in Afghan national army from 80000 to 134000. I believe that this is most important aspect of his speech as a strong central force will definitely have some impact on the overall situation. If the situation in Afghanistan stabilise to the extent that local army takes charge of the situation (even if the Taliban are not totally defeated) and foreign forces leave than situation in Pakistan will cool down as well

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Both Iraq and Afganistan are oil wars. They are fought for the well being of the oil industry. They have nothing to do with terrorism, although when the US invaded Afganistan and Iraq they made millions of resistance fighters in both countries ( terrorists in US jargon.). And don't get confused, the Afganis and Iraqies fighting the USA are resistance fighters not terrorists. They are fighting an occupying power, just as they fought the Russians as an occupying power. In Afganistan the oil companies want a pipeline that by passes Russia. In Iraq the US oil companies want the oil fields. The US military is there until the oil companies say they can leave. Obama is just following orders from his corporate masters. For the USA, nothing new there.

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