RealClearWorld - Afghanistan

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China Digs in to Afghanistan - Pantucci & Petersen, The National Interest

A low-key presence on the ground, Chinese firms and diplomats are thinking and acting in terms that have a horizon beyond 2014. Beijing may not be angling to take over the countr...

Did Canada 'Win' in Afghanistan? - Jeffrey Simpson, Globe and Mail

NATO is supposed to funnel about $4-billion a year to Afghanistan after its soldiers and trainers leave, principally to assist the Afghan army. If the past is any guide, portions...

NATO Does Not Know What It Is For - David Warren, Ottawa Citizen

NATO does not know what it is for. Its member governments are unable to formulate a common purpose. Its use as a flag of convenience, for exotic foreign adventures that may be po...

Like Afghanistan, Mali Victim of Terror War - Ian Birrell, The Independent

So now we know that Nato will bring its misguided campaign in Afghanistan to a close by the end of 2014, although even Barack Obama admits that the country will remain highly insec...

Has U.S. Been a Reliable Partner for Afghans? - Andrew Exum, WPR

This week, the news broke that Ryan Crocker, arguably the finest U.S. diplomat of his generation, was resigning from his post as the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan. Crocker, who ca...

Obama Botching Afghan Exit - Ahmed Rashid, New York Review of Books

NATO leaders spoke deliberately about “ending the war” but nobody believes the war will end simply because NATO is leaving. The summit failed to outline any political s...

Obama's Looming Afghanistan Debacle - David Rothkopf, Foreign Policy

He cut out the generals. He cut out the secretary of defense. He cut out the secretary of state. And in the end, he produced a schizophrenic policy that will almost certainly go d...

Afghan Corruption Breeds Failure - Innocent & Markus, Washington Times

Corruption in Afghanistan extends beyond petty bribery and kickbacks, so much that too many Karzai power brokers gain much from war and will lose from peace. Corruption is everyw...

The Soviet Example in Afghanistan - Jonathan Steele, The Guardian

Talks with the Taliban and a ceasefire are vital prerequisites to any dignified withdrawal....

Afghanistan: Exit with No Strategy - The Guardian

The least one can expect of a president who prolonged Afghan suffering by ordering a surge of troops to finish the job, is that he has something that could be dignified with the ...

'Afghan Good Enough' - Max Boot, Contentions

Earlier today, I blogged about the revelation in the New York Times that, in the words of one of the president’s advisers, in Afghanistan, “The military was ‘all in,’ as t...

Obama Abandons Afghan 'Good War' - Jonathan Tobin, Contentions

Throughout President Bush’s second term, the chief foreign policy mantra of the Democratic Party was to claim the United States was wrong not to concentrate its energy...

Don't Abandon Afghan Women - Laura Bush, Washington Post

As the United States convenes the NATO summit in Chicago this weekend, the fate of Afghanistan’s women is on my mind. This spring marks the 10th anniversary of the return o...

How Long Until the Taliban Return? - David Ignatius, Washington Post

A veteran U.S. diplomat who has helped plan many NATO summits over the years was offering a wager the other day, and the bet was this: How many years after NATO forces withdraw f...

Taliban, Karzai Not on Obama's Script - Tony Karon, Time

President Barack Obama huddled with President Hamid Karzai in Chicago on Sunday, urging Afghanistan’s leader to accelerate negotiations with the Taliban over a political so...

Withdrawal Opens New Afghan 'Great Game' - Jerry Meyerle, TNI

President Obama described his recent pact with Kabul as the symbol of a new chapter in the decade-long conflict in Afghanistan. Others have portrayed it as an omen of things to com...

Charting Obama's Shift on Afghanistan - David Sanger, New York Times

Mr. Obama concluded in his first year that the Bush-era dream of remaking Afghanistan was a fantasy, and that the far greater threat to the United States was an unstable, nuclear...

Patience in Afghanistan - Washington Post

NATO leaders gathering in Chicago on Sunday are all, in their own way, looking for the exit from Afghanistan. It's understandable, after a decade of war. But it is safe to bet th...

To Survive, NATO Must Globalize - Anne-Marie Slaughter, Project Syndicate

The immediate topic on the agenda in Chicago next week will be getting NATO forces out of Afghanistan. But the longer-term subject will be getting as many countries as possible i...

NATO and Afghanistan - New York Times

The alliance must also look beyond 2014. A new strategic partnership with Washington has sent an important message to the Afghans — and the region — that the United S...

NATO's Enduring Ties to Afghanistan - Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Politico

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit in Chicago on Saturday and Sunday will chart the course of our future engagement in Afghanistan. We plan to spell out the details of...

Memo to Europe: Stop Freeloading in Afghanistan - Chicago Tribune

Memo to Europe: Pay your share to help a fledgling Afghan government defend itself against insurgency, and to defend yourself....

Afghan's Terrorists Are Drug Bosses, Too - Tim Sullivan, Foreign Affairs

Ten years into the war in Afghanistan, the United States and its coalition partners face a range of adversaries -- insurgent groups, narcotics-trafficking organizations, and crimin...

Afghanistan's Post-NATO Future - Harsh Pant, Yale Global

President Barack Obama's dramatic arrival in Kabul aboard Air Force One under the cover of darkness was fitting finale to the cloak-and-dagger operation that eliminated Osama bin L...

The Afghan View from Kazakhstan - Yerzhan Kazykhanov, RealClearWorld

The development of the Northern Distribution Network (NDN) as a supply route to Afghanistan through Russia and Central Asia, including Kazakhstan, has played a vital role in susta...

How to Keep Afghanistan Secure - Zalmay Khalilzad, The National Interest

One historic weakness of U.S. foreign policy has been the excessive confidence of policy makers who believe they can foresee the future. As a result, they lock themselves into pol...

Pakistan's Missed Chance to Tame Badlands - David Ignatius, Wash Post

As America begins to pull back its troops from Afghanistan, there's one consequence that gets little notice but is likely to have lasting impact: Pakistan is losing the best chance...

NATO's Afghan Supply Route Is Hurting Pakistan - Rafia Zakaria, Dawn

It is time that the issue of the Nato supply route began to be evaluated not simply in terms of how crucial the supplies are for US forces battling the Taliban in Afghanistan, bu...

Obama's Foreign Policy Failures - Gideon Rachman, Financial Times

President Barack Obama ran as the anti-George Bush candidate. So it is ironic that his signature achievement overseas - the killing of Osama bin Laden - is one Bush would have b...

Afghan Post-Intervention Era Takes Shape - Jason Burke, The Guardian

With no let-up in the U.S. pullout and peace hopes receding, Afghanistan's post-international-intervention era is taking shape....

How Democracies Exit Small Wars - United States Studies Centre

This article published in the Australian Journal of International Affairs argues that opposition political parties can play an important role in determining when and how a democrac...

Afghanistan Sliding Back to Chaos - Gulf News

A number of recent events in Afghanistan indicate that the country has reached a dangerous state. Instability remains a characteristic of conditions there and it is a very long roa...

Israeli Attack on Iran May Enrage Muslim World - Ahmed Rashid, Haaretz

Iran is far more likely to mobilize on the basis of the much wider support it can muster in the Muslim world, which is already seething with anti-American and anti-Israeli feelin...

Inside the Hunt for bin Laden - Peter Bergen, CNN

In a new book, a "60 Minutes" interview and other recent public statements, Jose Rodriguez, a three-decade veteran of the CIA who rose to become head of the National Clandestine Se...

Pakistan Holds Key to Security at UK Olympics - Con Coughlin, Telegraph

Instead of a military lock-down in London, politicians should focus energies on Islamabad....

The Case for Afghan Prisoner Releases - Max Boot, Contentions

I sympathize with conservatives such as Bethany Mandel who are outraged by reports that the U.S. military in Afghanistan has been releasing some insurgent commanders from its det...

10 Questions on Terrorist Releases - Marc Thiessen, Enterprise Blog

The Washington Post reports this morning that the Obama administration “has for several years been secretly releasing high-level detainees from a military prison in Afghanista...

Obama Refuses to Leave Afghanistan - Gulf News

In a bizarre move, the United States made its armed forces hostage to the uncertain future of Afghanistan when President Barack Obama signed a ten-year deal last week to continue a...

When Afghan War Ends, Real Danger Begins - Alan Philps, The National

We are badly served by history books when it comes to wars. They give us a start date and an end date but these neat divisions never tell the full truth....

In Afghanistan the U.S. Prepares to Leave and Stay - The National

When the US president Barack Obama appeared on television Tuesday to give a speech from Kabul, it was to tell the US public that the longest war in America's history was drawing to...

U.S. Rightly Tired of the War in Afghanistan - New York Daily News

It was a dramatic, surprise trip to Bagram Air Base Tuesday by President Obama, complete with a prime-time speech announcing a long-term agreement with the Afghan government. Troo...

Time for "Good Enough" in Afghanistan - CSIS

Every day seems to widen the gap between the goals the United States is seeking to achieve in Afghanistan and its ability to achieve them. Even apparent progress, like the Strategi...

How Afghan War Turned from Good to Bad - Mort Abramowitz, U.S. News

We went to war to make sure that country would never again serve as a haven for terrorists. We were wholly justified in doing that by 9/11. We secured a brilliantly quick victory...

Politicizing the Drone Debate - David Ignatius, Washington Post

Open debate about drone policy is valuable. I just wish Brennan hadn't expanded it at the very time Obama's political advisers are preparing to run partly on his tough-minded rol...

Obama: Afghan Goals 'Within Reach' - Alexis Simendinger, RealClearPolitics

President Obama, speaking in Afghanistan after a surprise, 13-hour journey there Tuesday and Wednesday, said during a live, prime-time address that U.S. troops will rotate home at...

Obama's Drone War May Soon Reach a Tipping Point - James Joyner, TNR

When it comes to the rapidly expanding drone war, the possibility of blowback has always been a decidedly known unknown....

Mission Accomplished at Last? - Michael Hirsch, National Journal

Let’s be clear: Flying abruptly to Kabul to announce that the end “is now within our reach” against a backdrop of military vehicles on the anniversary of Osama bi...

What Obama Didn't Tell Us About Afghanistan - Chris Sands, Global Post

MAHMUD RAQI, Afghanistan - Last night, on the anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden, President Barack Obama stood in front of armored military vehicles at Bagram Air Base a...

Al-Qaeda Is Nation-Building - Should We Be Worried? - Will McCants, FP

Al-Qaeda's gains warrant serious attention, but they do not represent a shift away from the group's "far enemy" strategy targeting the United States to a "near enemy" strategy targ...

NATO's Afghanistan Lies Continue - Haroon Siddiqui, Toronto Star

NATO cannot win in Afghanistan. It could have, should have, some years ago. But now it cannot, certainly not before its scheduled troop withdrawal in 2014. So why does Stephen Ha...

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