U.S. troops head to their assigned tactical vehicles after completing a pre-mission brief on Forward Operating Base Farah before meeting the Farah City mayor in Farah City, Afghanistan, Jan. 13, 2013. U.S. Navy photo by Lt. j.g. Matthew Stroup
Get The Deal Or Get Out Of Afghanistan -- Dov S. Zakheim, The National Interest
The war that Barack Obama once called a war of necessity no longer seems necessary to his administration.
The president and his Afghan counterpart, Hamid Karzai, made it clear at their joint press conference last week that the United States will hand over control of all Afghan territory to that country’s security forces in a few months, several months sooner than anticipated. “Afghanization” is therefore proceeding apace. Of course the administration prefers not to use the term because its analogue, “Vietnamization,” did not exactly prove to be successful. Whatever it is termed, however, the trajectory of the administration’s policy indicates that the current variant in Afghanistan is unlikely to meet with any more success than did its southeast Asian analogue four decades ago.
Read more ....
My Comment: I prefer the "get out of Afghanistan" option over the "making a deal" option. And while I do not expect the Afghan government to agree to some acceptable status of forces agreement (SOFA), recent comments from Karzai and others make me wonder if the Afghans are entertaining the idea of making it impossible for U.S. forces to remain .... preferring to be left alone without U.S. or NATO interference.
No comments:
Post a Comment