London & Washington Disagree on Afghanistan Strategy
The UK and the US are not seeing eye-to-eye on Afghanistan.
Talks the Afghans and the Taliban hosted by Saudi Arabia last month have been given short shrift by the Bush administration; its nose out of joint that the Afghans did not ask permission of the US to hold these talks.
However, this is a tad disingenuous since US friendly Saudi Arabia would not have been involved in these talks in Mecca without US knowledge and acquiescence.
Britain believes that there can be no definitive military victory in Afghanistan while the US still clings to an unrealistic victory.
I posted this a few days ago: "J. Sidney McSame is a warmonger, plain and simple so his views on Afghanistan through the prism of his irrational rantings of permanent war disqualifies him as unfit for the presidency.
"Barack Obama on the other hand needs some education about the realities of the conflict in Afghanistan.
Cockburn concluded: "Brigadier Carleton-Smith's forthright admission that there can be no outright military victory also shows realism. The best route for Britain and the US in Afghanistan is to have modest and attainable objectives combined with a recognition that, in its struggle for survival, the Afghan government must fight and win its own battles."
Now Gareth Porter writes at AsiaTimes that the rift between London and Washington is growing: "The George W Bush administration, however, was evidently taken by surprise by news of the Afghan peace talks and decidedly cool toward them. One US official told The Washington Times that it was unclear that the meetings in Saudi Arabia presage government peace talks with the Taliban. The implication was that the administration would not welcome such talks.
"A US defense official in Afghanistan told the paper the Bush administration was "surprised" it had not been informed about the meeting in advance by the Afghan government.
"A US defense official in Afghanistan told the paper the Bush administration was "surprised" it had not been informed about the meeting in advance by the Afghan government.
"The Afghan talks come against the backdrop of a Bush administration decision to send 8,000 more US troops to Afghanistan next year, and the expressed desire of the US commander, General David D McKiernan, for yet another 15,000 combat and support troops. Both Democratic candidate Barack Obama and Republican candidate John McCain have said they would increase US troop strength in Afghanistan.
"Obama has said he would send troops now scheduled to remain in Iraq until next summer to Afghanistan as an urgent priority, whereas McCain has not said when or how he would increase the troop level.
"Such a US troop increase is exactly what the British fear, however. The British ambassador in Afghanistan, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, was quoted in a diplomatic cable leaked to the French investigative magazine Le Canard Enchaine last week as telling the French deputy ambassador that the US presidential candidates "must be dissuaded from getting further bogged down in Afghanistan".
"Obama has said he would send troops now scheduled to remain in Iraq until next summer to Afghanistan as an urgent priority, whereas McCain has not said when or how he would increase the troop level.
"Such a US troop increase is exactly what the British fear, however. The British ambassador in Afghanistan, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, was quoted in a diplomatic cable leaked to the French investigative magazine Le Canard Enchaine last week as telling the French deputy ambassador that the US presidential candidates "must be dissuaded from getting further bogged down in Afghanistan".
"...statements by Brigadier Carleton-Smith, the senior British commander in Afghanistan, last week, underlined the gulf between US and British views on Afghanistan.
" 'We're not going to win this war,' said Carleton-Smith, according to The Sunday Times of London on September 28. Carleton-Smith, commander of an air assault brigade, has completed two tours in Afghanistan. He suggested that foreign troops would and should leave Afghanistan without having defeated the insurgency. 'We may leave with there still being a low but steady ebb of rural insurgency,' he said.
"Like [British ambassador in Afghanistan, Sir Sherard] Cowper-Coles, Carleton-Smith suggested that the real problem for the coalition was not military but political. "This struggle is more down to the credibility of the Afghan government than the threat from the Taliban," he said.
"When Gordon Brown replaced Tony Blair as British prime minister in June 2007, British officials concluded that the Taliban were too deeply rooted to be defeated militarily, according to a report in The Guardian last October. The Brown government decided to pursue a strategy of courting "moderate" Taliban leaders and fighters who were believed to be motivated more by tribal obligation than jihadi ideology.
"That idea was in line with US strategy. Now, however, both Karzai and the British have moved beyond that to a policy of negotiating directly and officially with the Taliban. For the British it appears to be part of an exit strategy that is not shared by Washington.
"Defense Secretary Gates responded to Carleton-Smith's remarks Tuesday by reiterating the official US view that additional forces are needed in Afghanistan and implying that the British's officer's views are "defeatist". Gates said there "certainly is no reason to be defeatist or to underestimate the opportunity to be successful in the long run".
"That idea was in line with US strategy. Now, however, both Karzai and the British have moved beyond that to a policy of negotiating directly and officially with the Taliban. For the British it appears to be part of an exit strategy that is not shared by Washington.
"Defense Secretary Gates responded to Carleton-Smith's remarks Tuesday by reiterating the official US view that additional forces are needed in Afghanistan and implying that the British's officer's views are "defeatist". Gates said there "certainly is no reason to be defeatist or to underestimate the opportunity to be successful in the long run".
Obama may want to have a serious talk with the British and reconsider his more troops to Afghanistan plans.
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