Ahmed Rashid | Peshawar, Afghanistan - The NATO summit at Riga has failed to resolve long standing problems within the military alliance in dealing with the crisis in Afghanistan. Some member states refused to provide additional troops to the 32,000 strong NATO force, while other states which already have troops in Afghanistan refused to end restrictions on how and where those troops can be deployed by NATO commander General David Richards. Moreover NATO forces are still short of critical equipment including helicopters.
As result there will be the same number of NATO troops to meet the Taliban offensive in southern Afghanistan in the spring of 2007. The lack of will shown by NATO members is certain to encourage the Taliban and al' Qaeda offensive and demonstrate that the West does not have the same staying power as the extremists. At the same time it will lead to demoralization within the Afghan government and the people and make it far more difficult to encourage aid agencies to carry out critical development work in insurgency hit regions.
Moreover Afghanistan's neighboring states, who helped fuel the country's civil war in the 1990s will begin to stake their claim of influencing future events in preparation for what they envisage will be the eventual withdrawal of Western forces. Neighboring states are most likely to step up their interference in Afghanistan by arming their former Afghan allies. The influx of foreign money and arms for the warlords will escalate the political crisis in the country between ethnic groups and further weaken the government of President Hamid Karzai.
An even greater danger, as pointed out this week by former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage is the short term potential of the conflict in Afghanistan spilling over into Pakistan, Iran and India and destabilizing the region.
Email This Post | Del.icio.us | Digg | Facebook
Please e-mail PostGlobal if you'd like to receive an email notification when PostGlobal sends out a new question.


Comments (4)
once again insurgents have raised their heads in southern afghanistan and are involved in targeting afghan army and foreign soldiers. by now it has become quiet clear to the world that pakistan is playing a double games declaring itself on one side a partner in war against terrorism and on other hand supproting and rearming taliban insurgency especially in southern afghanistan. world has learnt about the taliban through a most single and comparatily reliable source a journalist Ahmad Rasheed. although he has tried to present the case of oppresed afghans who have opten fall prey to the activities of insurgents since 1980, yet there are some speculations which go in direct opposition to the cuse of the afghan nation and may further complicate the matter that is the conclusions which Mr. Rasheed has often deriven out of his findings. in his book taliban he has on many occassion concluded that all moves of the uncivilized taliban were aimed at the supramacy of pashtoon community which is quite against the fact. taliban played in hands if ISI. ISI played its game so cleaverly that it always kept space for future interference and disturbance in afghanistan. it has now become evidents that most of the moves which taliban made were directed by the officials of ISI which were later colored wronlgy and some faulty analysis made the worls believe that these activities were aimed at to keep the pashtoon hold on matters perminently. but it is fact that pashtoons have forgotten that afghanistan is their country and home land they are the ones who have remained the most injurious to their country.
once again illetrate and poor pashtoons of temporary border line have been excited and are being used in the name of Islam and Allah which has repreatdly caused irreparable loss to the country during the last 80 years. there is no doubt that pakistan is rearming and supporting taliban but the silence and helplessness of western countries in this matter is beyond understanding. they have failed to presureize pakistan to shut the factories of insurgency popularly known as madrisas or seminaries.
being pasrt of the same soceity i know what is happening in the border areas. MNA maulana Noor Muhammad who recently announced his resignation from the seat has been registering suicide attackers and has been persuading other innocent students for such attacks. nato must get tough with pakistan and presurize him to stop supporting and rearming taliban insurgents
December 9, 2006 3:58 AM | Report Offensive Comment
Posted on December 9, 2006 03:58
why NATO fail in afghanistan i need more informatio about because NATO is a powerfull org. in the world why this org couldn't bring peace and quiet in afghanistan
December 3, 2006 1:40 AM | Report Offensive Comment
Posted on December 3, 2006 01:40
From the very beginning, Pakistan is using a double-face policy toward Afghanistan.
Pakistan never wanted a peaceful and stable Afghanistan in its neighborhood. ISI and other Pakistani generals and extremists mullahs are behind all the casualties happening in Afghanistan.
Now Pakistan wants to make fool the international community, helping Afghanistan that the entire problem is inside the country. But the whole world has to know that all terrorist training centers are in the territory of Pakistan. Countries involved in "war on terrorism" have to pay attention to the interference of Pakistan into Afghanistan's internal politics and have to fight the roots of terrorism in the territory of Pakistan.
November 30, 2006 11:25 PM | Report Offensive Comment
Posted on November 30, 2006 23:25
Pakistan wants to use war in Afghanistan and the Taliban's insurgency as an insurance policy for its own survival as a country. The minute war stops in Afghanistan and the religious perversion of the Taliban movement changes into a Pahtoon nationalism, it will be a death sentence for the Asian nuclear-armed Yugoslavia, Pakistan.
Pakistan is now tasting such a nationalist movement in Baluchistan where Pakistani mullahs and generals failed to flourish Taliban-style extremist ideology. Pakistani ISI with its bluffs and duplicity wants to prevent the spillover of nationalism into the Pashtoon people in both sides of the Durand line. Pashtoons and Baluches have no history of living together with the Panjabi majority population in Pakistan. They see Pakistan as an illegitimate state that was borne out of British colonial designs. The Islam is not the reason deter for Pakistan, as some believe, Islam is only a cover for this grand colonial project in the south Asia. Everyone knows that Pakistani Anglicised ruling elite does not believe in Islam, instead, it uses mullah, mosque, Taliban, and beard as tools to have a separate government.
It is regretted that Pakistani generals and mullahs continue to bluff and fool the Washington into thinking that their country is a valued allied in war against terrorism
November 30, 2006 10:27 PM | Report Offensive Comment
Posted on November 30, 2006 22:27