Simon Jenkins: “Obama has no stomach for this fight”
[headline & subheadline]: “Obama has no stomach for this fight. Obama’s Afghanistan strategy oozes with desperation not to be there — and the Taliban will bide their time until the exit.”
Simon Jenkins:”… Afghan ‘surge’ is his frantic bid to rescue what promises to be a stumbling re-election campaign that must start in 2011. It oozes with his desperation not to be in Afghanistan. The question is how best to disengage. As in Vietnam and as the Russians found, withdrawal tends to be possible here in Afghanistan only after the generals on the ground have been given a last chance to claim victory.”
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“This surge bears no relation to that in Iraq, except as an exit strategy…”
”.. ‘training’ an Afghan army to fight Pashtun insurgents is futile. Afghans fight only for their tribe and its land.. Equally futile is to make withdrawal dependent on ridding the Kabul government of corruption. These conditions are just a smokescreen behind which NATO hopes to retreat.”
