In a move away from President Obama’s deadline of July 2011 for the start of an American drawdown from Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, all cited 2014 this week as the key date for handing over the defense of Afghanistan to the Afghans themselves. Implicit in their message, delivered at a security and diplomatic conference in Australia, was that the United States would be fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan for at least four more years.

This is a welcome change. Even though one would not want the US to be in Afghanistan and lose more military members (and also the Afghanistan population who are suffering the confrontation between the US and the Taliban), the mission that the US has set for itself in Afghanistan in terms of ensuring that the country is not a center for terrorism will need this time and effort to come to a result.

Internally, the US President is coming under huge strain; his fellow Democrats don’t support adding more troops to the Afghan war since it is highly unpopular with their base; the Republicans did not support his announcing of a deadline to commence withdrawal of troops. The biggest fear of everyone is that by announcing a date, the Taleban, which has been out of power for 8 years now and fighting the insurgency, can afford to wait 2 more years and then make the effort to overthrow Karzai when the US leaves. Pakistan would no longer be willing to invest in an effort to fight the Taleban if it sees the US disengaging from the area, and needs a friendly Afghanistan to counter India.
So now, you have US officials trying their best to persuade leaders from all over that the US has not announced a disengagement, that the withdrawal would only happen if the Afghan army and security services are in a good enough condition, and that the end date for the withdrawal is not decided. Further, the US would set up bases in the area to ensure that it retains a sizable balance. However, Obama is also being accused of making decisions based on politics by ensuring that a withdrawal is in place when he is fighting for re-election.

For the second month in a row, U.S. and allied troop deaths in the Afghan war have surpassed those in Iraq, according to official figures tallied by CNN. In June, 46 foreign troops died in Afghanistan and 31 troops died in Iraq. In May, 23 foreign troops died in Afghanistan and 21 died in Iraq. A Pentagon report issued last week about Afghanistan said that security in many areas of the country is regarded as “fragile” and that Taliban militants have regrouped into a “resilient insurgency” after the Taliban was toppled from power in 2001.

The United Nations said recently that civilian deaths in Afghanistan have gone sharply upward in the past year, largely because of stepped-up Taliban attacks and an insurgent shift toward tactics like roadside bombings, U.N. officials said Sunday. Afghan civilian deaths in the first six months of 2008 jumped 60 percent, from 430 in the first six months of 2007 to 698 this year, John Holmes, the U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said.

If the coalition loses Afghanistan to the Taleban again, they will face a breeding ground for terrorists like never before, and will have to fight a massive battle on all fronts (in Afghanistan and at home) to recover from this situation.

Marking the end of her historic presidential candidacy Saturday, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton urged her teary, angry, disappointed but finally cheering supporters to unite behind rival Sen. Barack Obama, for whom she gave a full-throated promise to “work my heart out” to win the White House in November for Democrats. Clinton gave thanks to her disappointed supporters, especially women, many of whom felt their candidate was diminished by a subtle sexism in the press and a party that diminished her candidacy, mocking her pantsuits and downplaying her achievements.
Many Clinton supporters are convinced that the strength she showed toward the end of the primaries, winning nine of the last 14 contests, including big swing states such as Pennsylvania and Ohio, exposed serious weaknesses in the Obama candidacy among core Democratic voters – seniors, older women, Latinos and blue-collar whites. Some believe having Clinton on the ticket would reel these voters back to the Democratic fold, while others think she should stay off, thinking it would be a losing Democratic campaign.

This will still be a long election. What must be worrying for the Obama camp is that even when it was clear that Hillary did not have a chance, even then there were states that voted for Hillary; and the swing state of Ohio must be even more worrying. Clinton won those voters who would also be strongly wooed by McCain as potential swing voters, attracted by a Republican candidate who does not seem a religious conservative, and who in fact could have been deemed as a candidate just a bit more to the right of Bill Clinton. One option is for Obama to co-opt Hillary as a Vice-Presidential candidate, but that is nowhere being decided right now.

However, even this has caused problems, since the election results have been badly disputed and the whole elections have become very controversial. The opposition claims that they won the election and that Mugabe’s Government has refused to accept this result and will do what it can to thwart the overall results:

Zimbabwe’s opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, has returned home to Zimbabwe in preparation for a run-off election due on 27 June. During recent weeks Mr Tsvangirai has been jetting around Africa and beyond, drumming up support. But back in Zimbabwe he has been criticised from some quarters for abandoning his supporters in their hour of need.
As the run off election approaches, the playing field is far from level and there are plenty of people keen to cling on to their positions in Zimbabwe at all costs. So levering Mr Mugabe out of office will still be a mountainous task.
Key to Mr Tsvangirai’s future is backing from African leaders especially amongst the regional grouping, Sadc, from whom Mr Mugabe has traditionally received strong support. But that support is eroding as Zimbabwe’s economic and political crisis deepens.

No one claims that the opposition leader is the panacea to all the ills that currently beset Zimbabwe, but there is still a hope that he will be better than Robert Mugabe, but that is only if Mugabe takes his exit gracefully and does not try to cling on through all efforts.

Iranian- and Syrian-backed Shiite opposition gunmen seized control of several Beirut neighborhoods from Sunni foes loyal to the U.S.-backed government on Friday. In a sign of the collapse of the pro-government forces in the face of the onslaught by the Shiite Hezbollah and Amal groups in the Lebanese capital’s Muslim sector, the TV station of top Sunni politician Saad Hariri’s Future Movement went off the air and the offices of its affiliated al-Mustaqbal newspaper on the edge of the city was set afire by opposition gunmen, according to TV footage and Hezbollah.

The scenes were a grim reminder of Lebanon’s devastating 1975-90 civil war in which 150,000 were killed and parts of the city wrecked. Factions threw up roadblocks and checkpoints dividing Beirut into sectarian enclaves. “We entered Karakol Druse. There is no Jumblatt and no Hariri here,” a Shiite gunman told Associated Press Television News, referring to the top Sunni leader and his ally, Druse leader Walid Jumblatt. The military has sought to stay out of the feuding, fearing a repeat of its breakup in the long civil war that wracked this country — home to rival communities of Sunni and Shiite Muslims, various Christian sects and Druse.

The problem with this conflict is that there are so many influences that it is difficult to tamp things down, and things could swiftly go from bad to worse. Syria has never backed away from trying to project its influence in Lebanon, and has carried out clandestine bombings and killings of figures opposed to its influence in Lebanon, including the former Primer Minister who was killed in 2005.

The huge roar inside the stadium was no doubt bettered by wildly celebrating supporters back in their war-ravaged homeland where Iraqis risked death to rejoice the unifying triumph of their national football team. Iraq blunted the resistance of the Saudis, who could not counter the determination and steel of their Gulf rivals in the crackling decider to the three-week continental tournament.
Iraq, who have captivated the football world with their inspirational progress at the tournament, finished conceding just two goals in their six games and put a spanner in the free-flowing Saudis, who were the leading scorers with 12 goals. The driven Iraqis have showed great resolve throughout the tournament, crushing Australia 3-1 and negotiating South Korea on penalties in last Wednesday’s gruelling two-hour semi-final in Kuala Lumpur.
It was a coaching triumph for Brazilian Jorvan Vieira, 54, who only signed a two-month contract with the Iraqi Football Federation and said Saturday he intended to quit the job after accomplishing what he had set out to achieve.

The clash with Saudi Arabia would have been all the more sweet because the Saudis are at this time, being accused of starting to support Sunni tribes in Iraq, and it is an open question as to how much of this aid is going to the Sunni insurgency, which is also working with Al-Qaeda in Iraq.
This is a great moment for Iraq, and would keep morale flying in the country for atleast a couple of days, till the next major bombing or other such disaster.