Barack Obama's Afghanistan strategy is a gamble and the price will be high

[IndianaGreen]

More sober analysis from The Guardian's correspondent in Afghanistan.

Barack Obama's Afghanistan strategy is a gamble and the price will be high

Simon Tisdall in Kabul
The Guardian, Wednesday 2 December 2009

Barack Obama's new Afghan strategy marks a fateful, possibly defining moment for his young presidency. In seeking to subdue, control, unite and then honourably depart from a country that has defied foreign conquest for all 2,500 years of its recorded history, Obama aims to succeed where Alexander the Great, among numerous others, ultimately and ingloriously failed.

For all the tortuous brainstorming and agonised debate that attended its birth, the Obama plan is a gamble with perhaps no more than a 50-50 chance of coming off. The price of victory, if such a term is applicable, will be high – for many in Afghanistan and the west, it is already far too high. The price of failure is incalculable – for the Afghan people, for Pakistan's shaky civilian government, for a reluctant Nato alliance, for the death struggle against Islamist extremism, and for Obama's own political survival.

For these reasons perhaps, the plan contains something for everyone, including the Taliban foe. While boldly advancing, the US and its allies are simultaneously planning their retreat. While fighting with dramatically increased troop numbers, they are talking with redoubled energy about "Afghanisation" and a negotiated settlement with so-called moderates. While urging President Hamid Karzai's government to stand up for the Afghan nation, they seek a devolution of power to provincial, district and traditional tribal structures.

In the words of one White House aide, the carefully recalibrated strategy, in all its myriad aspects, remains a "potential minefield". As the battle for Afghanistan rapidly unfolds over coming months, it could, like some treacherous improvised explosive device, blow up in the president's face. It's Obama's war now. And he could be its biggest casualty.

Will his plan work? The starting whistle has blown; the race is now on to build on the momentum generated tonight at West Point. On the military front, up to 9,000 US marines will finalise preparations in the next few days for an expected deployment south to Kandahar and Helmand, scene of some of the bitterest fighting involving British and Canadian troops.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/02/barack-obama-afghanistan-strategy

[twitfinder]

1. Why wasn't it his war.....

back when he sent the initial troop surge in April(?)?

He sure sounded like President Bush tonight. It's in our nation's vital interest, donchaknow. He even brought up 9/11.

Even for Mr. Obama, it's all about power and nation building and money!!!

Sing of the apocalypse(with all deference to my atheist friends)... Kucinch told O'Reilly tonight that is was an honor to be on his show.

We should all move to Switzerland.

Soon Iraq and Afghanistan will be our 58th and 59th states!!!

[IndianaGreen]

2. Afghanistan is not called the graveyard of empires for nothing

The Taliban are Pashtuns. We are the foreign occupier.