The US is leaving Afghanistan. Only the details of the withdrawal and the schedule of the return is to announced. A massive campaign will be launched to obfuscate the defeat with face saving measures like the ones implemented in Iraq.Uzbekistan pressured by IMU is scared of Taliban reprisals on Supplies to Kabul. The NATO allies are reluctant to commit more troops.  The outgoing NATO commander estimated that 400,000 troops were needed to defeat the Taliban. An optimal troop level is impossible to be met. The US and its NATO allies simply do not have the capacity to deploy the troops necessary to force a military settlement or to pacify and occupy Afghanistan. Tick Tock Tick Tock-2011: Obama’s shrinking Afghan timeline

“wresting control of certain areas from the Taliban will be very difficult”. US Central Command, David Petraeus,

NATO needs 400,000 soldiers in Afghanistan. According to British and American General, even that would not be enough to defeat the Taliban. No country or group of countries have that amount of manpower to spare. The financial crisis in America and Europe makes it virtually impossible for the UK to send in an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan. The Europeans and NATO is unable and unwilling to continue the war in Afghanistan.

David Obey, the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, has given the administration a one-year deadline on Afghanistan; this tells me that House Democrats could turn on that war–and U.S. involvement in the region, generally–if public support for it slips, and if significant gains aren’t made.May 11 2009, 10:25 am by Chris Good, Zardari: U.S. Shares Blame For Taliban Threat.

There is no military solution to the Afghan quagmire. We have been advocating a more comprehensive solution for a decade. Replacing Mr. Karzai with Zalmay Khalilzad is like moving the deck chairs on the Titanic. The whole game is over. The US and European media too busy with the US elections has still not caught up with the reality of the fiasco in Kabul. The end is near.

Over the years, we have always maintained that the war in Afghanistan, like the war in Iraq, was also a war of choice. The vengeance for 9111 could have taken many avenues to secure American. Carpet bombing Afghanistan into the stone age was not a real solution. The Daisy Cutters acted only to create a surge of Anti-Americanism which will take decades to nullify. Afghans were friendly to the USA and remembered the support that the US had given them against the USSR. The fondness for Washington over Moscow was evident in the attitude of the Taliban and the ordinary Afghans. The Daisy Cutters, the Reapers and the B-52 bombed the goodwill away. The Daisy Cutters did satisfy the lust for blood for those who aspired and worked for the Plan for a New American Century (PNAC) but ti did nothing to secure America. The Daisy Cutters did nothing to win the war in Kabul. Justifying the Banality of Occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan: The Thinktanks attempt to complete the circle of complicity between a sycophantic press, and a non-inquisitive servile public. The nation is forced to accept the only argument that it is being repeatedly inundated with. More than 80% of Afghan territory is in the hands of the 38 insurgents groups collectively known as the “Taliban” in the Western media.

In 2001 Pakistan advised the US to station about 5000 marines in Tarbela and negotiate the exile or capture of Osama Bin Laden. The Taliban were fully amenable to this idea, and issues statements like “we don’t know where Osama is” and “he is a guest” and “his status as a guest is not compatible with the attack on another country’. The Taliban claim that they have always been involved in their own affairs–namely the liberation of Afghanistan. The Taliban has fought NATO, ISAF and the US forces on Afghan soil–a right given to them by the United Nations. According to the Taliban they have not attacked America or its interests anywhere else. 

The Obama camp has been split between the Surgers and the Exiters. Obama’s “Surgers” vs. “Exiters”: Exit strategy now or scrambled hasty retreat later. It seems that the surgers are losing and the Exiters are winning. Fixing Afpak: Inability to define exit strategy spells inevitable US military catastrophy in Kabul

There is clear evidence that the Indo-US relationship has taken a turn for the worst, and the US cannot play China against Bharatwith a neutral Japan. The problems in Eastern Turkistan could be a spill over of the Afghan war. The are is linked by many grids. The IMU is a major player that has caused headaches for Uzbekistan. AfPak countercurrents beyond the Oxus to AfPakAzUzbKazTurkKyr-istan.

There is news now that the Pakistanis have publicly offered to mediate the war in Afghanistan and prepare for an exit strategy from Afghanistan. For the ISPR to publicy announce the help to the USA simply attests to the fact that the deal has already been consummated. It is pedagogical  to note that the announcement to mediate with the Taliban comes at the heal of a the victory in Swat which routed the RAW agents who had tried to create problems for Pakistan.

The new found confidence of the Pakistani spokesman tells us reams on how the war went in Swat. The ISI has concrete evidence in terms of arms, ammunition and personnel of Delhi’s involvement in Swat. The Army has chosen to take concrete action on these matters rather than to make a fuss about it at the UN and other “cry baby” forums.

LONDON: Pakistan’s military has declared that not only is it in contact with Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar but that it can bring him and other commanders to the negotiating table with the United States.

The acknowledgment of on-going communication with Taliban forces using sanctuary in Pakistan to launch military strikes against US troops in neighbouring Afghanistan is part of a new diplomatic overture to help the Obama administration find an end to the long-running conflict.

In an exclusive CNN interview, Pakistan military spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said in return for any role as a broker between the United States and the Taliban, Pakistan wants concessions from Washington over Islamabad’s concerns with long-time rival India.

And senior US officials have told CNN the Obama Administration is willing both to talk to top Taliban leaders and to raise some of Pakistan’s concerns with India.

With Nato’s Afghan force commanders conceding the military fight against the Taliban in key areas of Afghanistan is at a ‘stalemate’ and that a recent influx of American combat troops is hoped to break the deadlock, the consensus among military and diplomatic figures in the region is that the United States cannot win the war in Afghanistan militarily. Dawn

Here are some lessons of history:

“In the interests, then, of peace; in the interests of commerce; in the interests of moral and material improvement, it may be asserted that interference in Afghanistan has now become a duty, and that any moderate outlay or responsibility we may incur in restoring order at Kabul will prove in the sequel to be true economy.” The exact assumptions were made in 1868 by Sir Henry Rawlinson, a celebrated and experienced member of the council of India, concerning the threat of a Russian presence in Afghanistan

In 1868, Rawlinson’s views were defeated. Sir John Lawrence, the new viceroy, persuaded Lord Derby’s government that Afghanistan was less important than it appeared, that our resources were limited, and that we had other more pressing priorities. Here, in a civil service minute of 1867, he imagines what would happen if the Russians tried to invade: “In that case let them undergo the long and tiresome marches which lie between the Oxus and the Indus; let them wend their way through poor and difficult countries, among a fanatic and courageous population, where, in many places, every mile can be converted into a defensible position; then they will come to the conflict on which the fate of India will depend, toil-worn, with an exhausted infantry, a broken-down cavalry, and a defective artillery.”

He concludes: “I am firmly of opinion that our proper course is not to advance our troops beyond our present border, not to send English officers into the different states of Central Asia; but to put our own house in order, by giving the people of India the best government in our power, by conciliating, as far as practicable, all classes, and by consolidating our resources.” Telegrpah. Afghanistan–A war we cannot win. Rory Stewart

The Britishers know that they have lost the battle in Afghanistan. The “nation of shopkeepers” understands that they have been licked, so they have announced a date for withdrawal. This gives them the fig leaf that they need to get out of the “graveyard of empires“. Mr. Obama should have followed suit, but he could not, perhaps because of domestic pressures. Mr. Obama possibly did not want to be blamed as the President who lost the war in Afghanistan. He probably did not want to be known as the President when the policy to “Cut and Run” was imposed. It is exactly this type of thinking that perpetuates perpetual mimetic war.

80% of Afghanistan is under insurgent control. Taliban sanctuaries around Kabul thumb thier noses at ISAF, NATO & US forces. Why would Taliban need safe havens far away in Pakistan?Last year, the representatives of the Karzai government as well as the emissaries of the Taliban met in Saudi Arabia. This was disclosed by none other than the Bruce Reidel one of President Obama’s advisors. We have already calculated that the US president had two years to resolve Afghanistan. The British and the Canadians are withdrawing from Afghanistan in 2011 and the Europeans have lost all entusiasm for the perpetual warfare in the Hindu Kush. 

Now Pakistan has offered an escape hatch to the sinking ship of the US Army. Pakistan has publicly stated that it can leverage the Taliban for a peace deal if the US reduces and eliminates Indian influences in Afghanistan. Based on the statements emanating from the White House and the State Department America is not only amenable to such a deal, it is actively encouraging the Pakistani government on taking the initiative.

And with the Pakistan military, with its intelligence service, the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate (ISI), now going public with its offer to act as broker to help initiate talks, this could be the first opportunity for a breakthrough in ending the Afghan war that began with the US invasion in 2001.

Abbas told CNN after its ‘very intense relationship’ with militants during the fighters’ alliance with the United States during the Soviet war in Afghanistan, the Pakistan military is now still in contact with Taliban commanders such as Mullah Omar, Jalaluddin Haqqani, Mullah Nazir and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, leader of the militant Hizb-e-Islami group.

‘That’s right, the ISI was in the forefront of the whole struggle against the Soviets. Now, by maintaining the contacts with the organizations like [Mullah Omar’s Taliban and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar] doesn’t mean that that state policy is [to be] providing them physical support or the funding or training,’ Abbas said. Dawn

For the bulk of the Indian strategic community, the unthinkable is happening – the prospect of an Afghan settlement involving the Taliban. From all accounts, the Taliban appear edging closer to the Afghan capital and tightening their control in the provinces ringing Kabul.

Unsurprisingly, Karzai has appealed to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia to mediate with the Taliban. To request the Saudi king to stake his prestige is serious business. Karzai couldn’t have acted alone. Alongside there are reports that the British intelligence has been talking to Taliban envoys in London.

The influential Asharq al-Awsat newspaper reported that senior Taliban functionaries who travelled to Saudi Arabia in the recent days have put forward 11 conditions, which include the withdrawal of foreign forces, political accommodation of the Taliban in key ministries and the drawing up of a new constitution that affirms Afghanistan as an Islamic state.

Indian policymakers, who have been bogged down in the labyrinthine passage of the Indo-US nuclear deal, need to take note that the ground is dramatically shifting. Regional security is set to transform. Several factors call for reckoning. First, there is cause to worry about Washington’s attention span in the period ahead to press ahead with the Afghan war.

After the 9/11 attacks Pakistani policy to support the groups did a ‘U-turn,’ he said.

‘And the state followed, the army followed, the ISI followed. Having said that no intelligence organization in the world shuts its last door on any other organization. So therefore the contacts are there. The communication remains. But it doesn’t mean you endorse what they are doing in Afghanistan. You know you have nothing to do with it because your plate is full.’

And even further, Abbas said, the Pakistani military has the ability to get the Taliban to the table with the United States to broker a cease-fire by jump-starting a dialogue between the warring parties, Abbas said.

‘That’s right. Dialogue,’ Abbas said. ‘Eventually, one would have to return to the dialogue table. I think that can be worked out. That is possible.’

Claude Angeli, veteran journalist of Le Canard Enchaine, got hold of a copy of a coded cable by the French deputy chief of mission in Kabul, Francois Fitou, based on a briefing by the heavyweight. British diplomat, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, servedas ambassador to Afghanistan. What Sir Sherard told Fitou in confidence is worth recalling:

• “The current situation [in Afghanistan] is bad; the security situation is getting worse; so is corruption and the government [of President Hamid Karzai] has lost all trust.”
• “The foreign forces are ensuring the survival of a regime which would collapse without them … They are slowing down and complicating an eventual exit from the crisis, which will probably be dramatic.”
• “We [NATO - North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies] should tell them [United States] that we want to be part of a winning strategy, not a losing one. In the short term, we should dissuade the American presidential candidates from getting more bogged down in Afghanistan … The American strategy is doomed to fail.”
• Britain aimed to withdraw its forces from Afghanistan by 2011.
• The only realistic outlook for Afghanistan would be the installation of “an acceptable dictator” and the public opinion should be primed for this.

Retired Gen. Hamid Gul, a former head of the ISI, Pakistan’s equivalent of the CIA, is known as the ‘Godfather of the Taliban ‘ He, too, said talks can be arranged. In terms of US interests in Afghanistan, he said, there is only one man who can make it happen.

‘Mullah Omar, nobody else,’ Gul said.

He insisted the Obama administration, through the Pakistan military, can access Mullah Omar. ‘Why not?’ he said, ‘Is he a terrorist by any definition? Has he indulged in any act of terrorism?’

Gul added a stated Taliban condition to any discussions, the complete withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan first, was not necessarily a fixed demand and, with concessions from Washington, could be softened and make way for negotiations to begin. Dawn

We have always maintained that the US will have to leave Afghanistan. It can declare victory and leave on its own schedule or it can leave Kabul on the schedule dictated by the Taliban. Once the US leaves, a pro-Pakistan government will come to power in Kabul. This is not conjecture, this is fact. No amount of scheming by Delhi can change the simple fact that Bharat has no grassroot support in Afghanistan. The emerging “Leave Afghanistan to Pakistan” strategy goes mainstream. Extricating the US from the Lost war in the Khyber.One of the major components of this “deal” is the Chinese request that the US should leave Afghansitan. China sets conditions for bailing out US and buying US T-Bills

Beyond US withdrawal from Afghanistan

Fixing AfPakexpedites the inevitable union between Pakistan and Afghanistan. 

Rupee News for several years has proposed that the Pakhtun areas of Afghanistan should be handed over to the Pakistani military and NATO and ISAFshould leave Pakistan. Now this is affirmed by some American Thinktanks. Saving the Pashtuns of Afghania from Afghanistan. Eradicating the Pashtun plight and ending occupation. (http://rupeenews.com/2008/01/31/saving-pashtuns-of-old-afghanistan-in-afghania-eradicating-pashtun-plight-ending-occupation/)