The reality of retreat
Leaked White House plans to keep only a minimal American military footprint in Afghanistan after 2014 to conduct training and counter-terrorism operations do not reflect military realities. A force of...
View ArticleBanter #82: Drone Strikes, Pakistan, and the Taliban
Drones have played a major role of the United States’ war on terrorism. Earlier this month Mullah Nazir, a top Taliban commander in Pakistan, was killed by a drone strike and AEI’s Reza Jan is here to...
View ArticleAfghan pundits question ‘hasty’ transition
Last Friday, President Obama announced that most of US combat operations in Afghanistan would end this spring, signaling a quicker transition and troop withdrawal than planned. “Starting this spring...
View ArticleHow many troops does the US need in Afghanistan?
Discussions about how many troops are needed in Afghanistan after 2014 have come to seem like a competition—I can name that war in 3,000 troops; well, I can name it in 2,500… The proliferation of...
View ArticleIran wields soft power in Afghanistan
Afghanistan’s former intelligence chief, Amrullah Saleh, has written an informative piece on the BBC Pashto website, explaining Iran’s soft power and hard power activities aimed at expanding the...
View ArticleThe top 10 ObamaLeaks John Brennan needs to explain
When John Brennan appears for his confirmation hearing as the next CIA director tomorrow, he needs to explain to the Senate these ten major leaks of classified national security information from the...
View ArticleObama’s speech an exercise in wishful thinking
“The Afghan War is coming to an end,” President Obama said this afternoon in a speech about the future of U.S. counterterrorism policy. “Today, the core of al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan is on a...
View ArticleKabul attacks show futility of talks with the Taliban
A group of heavily-armed Taliban fighters launched an attack against the military wing of Kabul International Airport early this morning, firing rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles in a...
View ArticleIt’s official: America has lost Afghanistan
The news today that the United States will begin negotiating with the Taliban will certainly be celebrated in the future Afghanistan as “Taliban Victory Day.” There is a long history of negotiation...
View ArticleHasty transition would jeopardize US gains in Afghanistan
At a ceremony in Kabul today, Afghan President Hamid Karzai announced that his country’s security forces had taken the lead for security across the country from the US and NATO coalition, marking a...
View ArticleTaliban’s hypocrisy in peace talks
Early this morning, a group of Taliban gunmen launched a sophisticated attack on the presidential palace and a nearby CIA base in Kabul, infiltrating into one of the most fortified security zones in...
View ArticleObama’s ‘zero option’ in Afghanistan is a recipe for disaster
The New York Times reports that President Obama is “giving serious consideration” to pulling out all US troops from Afghanistan next year because of growing tension with Afghan President Hamid Karzai....
View ArticleFor the White House, timeline trumps reality in Afghanistan
A new Pentagon report claims that Afghanistan’s security forces aren’t yet ready to protect the country against the Taliban and al Qaeda on their own and will require “substantial training, advising,...
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Polls about Detroit, Afghanistan, and abortion
Public to Detroit: drop dead: In 1975, New York City faced bankruptcy and sought a federal bailout. After President Ford said that he would veto any bill calling for one, the Daily News ran the...
View ArticleObama’s woeful ‘Woe, is me’
David Sanger of the New York Times has a thumb-sucker of a piece today on Obama’s “struggles” with applying American power abroad — what the paper’s headline calls “Obama’s Evolving Doctrine.” The more...
View ArticleA “New Orientation” for Germany’s military — but to what end? Q&A with...
Hardly any other nation has been as conflicted about the use of hard power as Germany. The country’s deep ambivalence about the use of force to achieve political ends stems from its acute historical...
View ArticleAfghans not losing marbles, just selling them
And that’s a good thing. My friend Melissa Skorka has spent multiple years working as a civilian with US forces in Afghanistan. In Foreign Policy, she reports that both economic benefits and security...
View ArticleAmerican soldier battles to save Afghan translator
Janis Shinwari saved Matt Zeller’s life. CBS reports, in 2009: The two were caught in a Taliban ambush in eastern Afghanistan. Shinwari said, “We saw the first truck was blown up by an [improvised...
View ArticleWill al Qaeda’s resurgence in Iraq be repeated in Afghanistan?
Remember back in 2010, when Vice President Joe Biden declared that Iraq “could be one of the great achievements of [the Obama] administration” taking credit for the success of the surge that both he...
View ArticleIran’s Revolutionary Guards send Afghan refugees to fight in Syria
In a new escalation of its sectarian involvement in Syria, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) is reportedly training and sending scores of Afghan refugees (mostly Shi’ites) to fight...
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