The situation with the USA and NATO’s anti-terroristic campaign in Afghanistan is coming to a dead-end. This demonstrates to the entire world that the influence of Islamic-Jihad trend is growing.
A small war waged by the Americans and their NATO allies to deprive Al Qaeda militants of their mountain hideout has been going on for eight years. It virtually became a slap in the face for the US and caused it to lose its leadership position in the unipolar world.
Today, the American administration has to face the multipolar world with new emerging leaders in the political arena. One of them is China, where Obama is trying to build a strategic partnership.
The White House has to admit that the US and NATO are deeply bogged down in the Afghan swamp. Washington and European capitals are frantically looking for ways out but do not see an alternative to military presence.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is one of the strongest supporters of the Afghan war. He suggested conducting a conference in London in the beginning of 2010 to discuss the ways of Afghanistan’s development.
In his address, Brown appealed to President Hamid Karzai asking him to take urgent measures that would eliminate corruption in the country.
He also stated that the international society has to define a procedure that would allow gradual transfer of Afghan territory to the Afghan government.
Brown said that British troops would return home after Afghan people take control of their own safety and force out Al Qaeda. This is a shadowy prospect since no one believes that Karzai is capable of controlling the situation in his country.
However, in early November Brown stated that British policy in Afghanistan would not change despite the losses. So far 96 British soldiers died in Afghanistan in 2009. Brown is convinced that his military mission cannot be fulfilled without risk and danger.
He emphasized that Afghanistan and Pakistan continue to be the main terrorist threat for Britain. He added that those who question British military presence in Afghanistan should think about terrorist attacks conducted in Britain since 2001.
Meanwhile, an article written by Khalil El-Anani for the Arabic newspaper "Al Ahram" deserves particular attention. In the said article the political analyst discussed the evolution of strategic tasks and Jihad agenda of Al Qaeda.
According to Khalil El-Anani, “…now that Al-Qaeda's war of attrition against the US has stepped up into full gear in Afghanistan and Pakistan, under the banner of the Taliban movements in those countries. The organization’s chief aim at this juncture is to keep US forces in the conflict zone as long as possible in order to materially and militarily drain America.”
“It is little wonder, from this vantage point, that Al-Qaeda regarded the US decision to withdraw from Iraq as a strategic loss. Not only does it eliminate Al-Qaeda's major pretext for continuing to fight in Iraq, it threatens to reduce support for the organization in Iraq and elsewhere, and to expose it politically and militarily. Conversely, President Obama's decision to increase US forces in Afghanistan to 63,000 troops was a gift to Al-Qaeda as it effectively inaugurated its attrition project, “El -Anani wrote.
The Arabic analyst mentioned that the more troops that are sent to Afghanistan and the longer they stay there, the greater the risk of military exhaustion. He suggested that Al Qaeda intentionally allured the US in this trap.
Currently, 63,000 US soldiers are stationed in Afghanistan, and this number may grow to 100,000 in the beginning of the next year if the conflict in the White House is resolved in favor of General Stanley McChrystal.
Besides, the losses among American and NATO soldiers have greatly increased.
“Meanwhile, because the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan have deteriorated so seriously, the US has lost many of the strategic advantages held for so long in the Gulf, and southeast and central Asia,” El -Anani stated. “
“While Al-Qaeda presses ahead with its strategy and develops its campaign of psychological warfare accordingly, the US appears to be floundering in its attempts to outmaneuver it and sustain the war. What Washington is not doing is exploring the possibility of calling the war to a halt or radically altering its strategy,” the analyst wrote.
Khalil El-Anani believes that Al Qaeda’s main achievement is deterioration of political and moral prestige of the USA related to the destruction of the US’s role as the dominating superpower of the unipolar world.
This phenomenon became very clear in the last nine months. In his recent address to the UN General Assembly, President Obama officially declared the end of the unipolar world and opened a new era in international relations.
"That Al-Qaeda has succeeded in accomplishing this objective in its campaign against its "distant enemy" should compel us to reassess our views on the nature of the organization and how to respond to its strategic project," concluded the Arabic analyst.
It seems like many members of NATO coalition agree with this statement. According to polls published in London last weekend, 71 percent of British people want the troops withdrawn from Afghanistan within a year.
Ivan Tulyakov
Pravda.Ru
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