Afghanistan is a country which has a long history of not giving an easy time to foreign armies. From the time of the British who spent many battles in there, but could never claim that they had an easy control, to the Soviets who spent a huge military effort over there but finally had to retreat in the face of a harsh and determined, religion-fired insurgency, to the Pakistanis who used proxies (Taliban) to control the country, but could never claim that Pakistan ran Afghanistan. The history of the US in terms of running military campaigns in foreign countries after the Second World War has been bad; they had to retreat from Vietnam, retreated from Beirut after a huge truck bomb killed many marines, the Iraq war had seen a huge amount of internal opposition, a balanced Somalia effort was stopped after a street fight in Mogadishu killed 18 US soldiers, and so on. There is a huge internal debate in the US about evaluating the needs of sending troops to battle overseas, even if there is a need; and the sight of body bags of fallen soldiers causes this debate to get even more heated and emotional.
In Afghanistan, the US has a bad reputation; they were heavily involved till the Soviets left, and then the US abandoned the area, only picking it up after it started sensing terrorism efforts originating from there, and finally after the 9/11 attacks. Now, after President Obama did a balance of the military needs and political needs by announcing more troops, but also announcing a deadline, he has to balance multiple reactions.

continue reading "Having to defend the decision of announcing the withdrawal from Afghanistan"

When people talk about Afghanistan and its history, there is unanimity that no outside country can win inside Afghanistan. The British tried it in ‘The Great Game’s in the 19th century, and they lost troops, but never looked to be in a position where they could claim that they had repressed all discontent. The Soviets tried it in the 1980’s, but they were defeated by the terrain, by the fierce Afghans (although aided by the combined weight of Saudi Arabia, the US, and Pakistan); all together, it has always been claimed that no outside force can take control of Afghanistan, and it is predicted that the same will happen to the Americans in their effort in Afghanistan.
After the 2001 WTC attacks, the US supported the Northern Alliance in their battle against the Taleban, and literally bombed the Taliban into giving up their entire occupied territory. However, after that the Americans forgot all about history. George Bush gave up the effort in Afghanistan for the war in Iraq, and the unrest in Iraq made sure that Afghanistan did not get enough troops to protect against a resurgent Taleban, there was not enough support to ensure that development of the incredibly backward regions would happen, and the combination of a weak President Karzai supported by former warlords ensured that development and reform would not happen even though it was incredibly needed.
On the other hand, the Taleban, after taking its knocks in 2001, used a strategy of getting support and medical help for its fighters in Pakistan, and slowly started assuming enough strength to attack the US soldiers.

continue reading "What will Obama do in Afghanistan ? More troops, or … ?"

For Pakistan, Baitullah Mehsud has been one of the people who have caused it the most grief. Baitullah was the leader of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the leader of what has been called the Pakistani Taliban. He first became internationally famous when he was blamed for being behind the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, and in an ironic revenge, he was killed by a missile fired by a US operated drone when Benazir’s husband, Asif Ali Zardari is the President of Pakistan.
Baitullah was hiding in Waziristan, a rugged and difficult terrain that the Pakistani Army has always been reluctant to attack. This was even when Baitullah was blamed for a majority of the suicide attacks (including huge bomb attacks that made international news) that happened inside Pakistan, and yet he seemed to be always ahead of the Pakistani military. It was only in the recent past that the US operated drones (with their fearful missile launching capability) started striking fear in the hearts of these terrorists. The drone with their video coverage meant that these terrorist leaders always had to be on the move; and it was only recently that the drones also started tracking the Tehrik-i-Taliban; earlier the drones would be attacking the Al-Qaeda leadership hiding out in these remote areas as opposed to taking on the Pakistani Taleban. This had created a divergence between the US and Pakistan since Al-Qaeda was threatening Pakistani interest, while Baitullah was attacking Pakistani interests.
Now, the question is what are the next steps ? With recent reports of his potential successors having indulged in severe infighting and firing at each other, there is an opportunity for the Pakistani Government and military to step in and try to clean up. However, it seems much easier to try and strike a deal, since that would ensure that the hard steps of fighting in a difficult terrain can be avoided (link to article):

continue reading "Baitullah Mehsud dead in a drone attack – and his successors are now fighting"

Most people now recognize the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 to be a mistake, given that it had negative consequences in a variety of different areas (we’ll talk about that later). The invasion led to Iraq becoming a magnet for Islamic fighters from all over, unleashed the sectarian divisions that had been brutally suppressed by Saddam Hussein, led to horrific casualties among the population in the fighting that followed, and scared the neighboring countries (other than Iran), since it led to a Sunni ruled state becoming a Shia ruled state. It also put the United States in a position which was deemed comparable to Vietnam in the sense that mere military might did not lead to a winning position, and dealt huge blows to the armed forces of the US (to both the regular army and to the National Guard).
The issue about getting the army back from Iraq played a major role in the last Presidential campaign, and there is a lot of pressure on Obama to bring back the military; with majority public support being to bring back the army. For many years, it was unclear as to what the timeline for this would be ! However, in the last year or so, the US finally managed to get the right alliances (including with the Sunni minority, elements of which would have been fighting the American forces just a few months back). It was only this reduction of violence, along with fledging steps taken by the Iraqi army and police force (another self-created problem – the initial US head of the Provisional Authority had dissolved the Iraqi army as a contaminated Baathist organization without making any contingency plans). The situation in Iraq now, although not as secure as the US would have liked to see in an ideal world, is enough that the US is able to do the major symbolic action of withdrawing its forces from 6 major Iraqi cities (link to article):

continue reading "US troops withdraw from key Iraqi cities"