NATO, Karzai and the relics of Kabul

[unhappycamper]

NATO, Karzai and the relics of Kabul
By M K Bhadrakumar
Nov 23, 2010

The long-term security document signed between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Afghanistan on Saturday at the alliance's summit meeting in Lisbon has a 50-50 chance of becoming a historic milestone or ending up as yet another forlorn artifact in the vandalized Kabul museum.

Having come to the region seven years ago on a UN-mandated "out-of-area" operation hunting down al-Qaeda, the Western alliance is suo moto broadening and deepening its "commitment" in the hope of taking up long-term residence in the Hindu Kush. But Kabul museum has many relics of history.

A beleaguered and politically battered Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, meekly put his signature as a junior partner on the document with Anders Fogh Rasmussen, NATO's secretary-general. Regional capitals as far apart as Tehran, Moscow and Islamabad would have taken note.

Quite obviously, notwithstanding the phased transfer of security responsibility to the Afghan government by the end of 2014, the NATO forces hope to stay on in Afghanistan. The United States President Barack Obama said:

"I'm pretty confident (what) we will still be doing after 2014 is maintaining a counterterrorism capability until we have the confidence that al-Qaeda is no longer operative and is no longer a threat... And so it's going to be important for us to continue to have platforms to be able to execute those counterterrorism operations.

[Gravel Democrat]

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Presumably lots of this stuff comes from the Asia Times right now because the US media is very busy preparing for the Royal Wedding.

But after that's over they'll get right back on it.