Interests in Afghanistan and Pakistan Set to Collide, with Global Implications
The coming year: 2010, will see a growing clash of conflicting mega-trends in the Afghanistan-Pakistan theater; trends which will ultimately have long-term impact not only on the region, but on all of Eurasia and global energy and political arenas.
These main mega-trends are:
1. Obama’s Needs: The desperate efforts of the US White House of Pres. Barack Obama to appease and negotiate with any element of the “Taliban” — and the label “Taliban” is used with great looseness by most observers of the Afghanistan and Pakistan scene — willing to in order to expedite a US withdrawal and legitimize a “modern” Afghan state. The Obama White House is determined to start an irreversible disengagement by mid-2011 and to complete the bulk of the US military withdrawal from Afghanistan a year later, just before Obama runs for re-election. Since a US military victory is inconceivable, the White House argues, a negotiated settlement with the “Taliban” would provide the sole key to bringing the war to a “closure”. Toward this end, the US is empowering, and handsomely paying, a rapidly expanding cottage industry of mediators and go-betweens of dubious reach and reliability. This undertaking further disrupts the delicate tapestry of the region tribal populace and the competing indigenous leaderships because these mediators throw around huge sums of money and empower the crooks and criminals.
2. Pakistan’s Needs: The need for Pakistan to regain its influence over the “Taliban” in order to ensure Pakistani dominance over its own territory and much of Afghanistan has to be a priority for Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) organization.
Full article at: Afghanistan and Pakistan
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