The recently released Century Foundation International Task Force report on Afghanistan titled “Afghanistan: Negotiating Peace” usefully sketches out the myriad issues surrounding the challenges of seeking an Afghan peace settlement involving the Taliban. However, the report’s call for a “neutral international facilitator” harkens back to the 1990s, when the United …
In the past week, military excursions into the tribal regions of Pakistan targeted Islamist militants believed to have connections to a number of plots designed to strike at the European mainland. As more evidence comes to light, it becomes clearer that Islamist militants have been preparing to hit “soft” targets …
Before concluding that today’s New York Times article on Taliban outreach to Karzai means that an Afghan settlement is on the horizon, consider today’s other news from Afghanistan, which includes a suicide attack that killed the Deputy Governor of Afghanistan’s Ghazni province. The point is the Taliban may be reaching …
Unfortunately, President Obama missed a valuable opportunity tonight to demonstrate that he is fully committed to success in Afghanistan. Instead he stubbornly reiterated his July 2011 withdrawal date. Obama rightly said Americans should not lose sight of what is at stake in Afghanistan and that the U.S. must prevent the …
“Can we improve the Afghanistan Government? Maybe. Can we do it by July 2011? No.” This statement came from Dr. David Kilcullen, an expert in counterinsurgency and former advisor to General Petraeus, during rigorous questioning at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC) hearing last week titled, “Perspectives on Reconciliation Options …
The posting of over 90,000 classified US government documents by Wikileaks has raised fresh questions about the US strategy in Afghanistan. Leaking of classified information, particularly on this scale, has the potential to damage US national security interests and in general should be discouraged. Much of the information from the …
A front-page story on Afghan-Pakistani relations in today’s Washington Post indicates that Afghanistan and Pakistan are discussing a peace settlement for Afghanistan. While a genuine thaw in relations between the two countries would be welcome, the idea that the U.S. would take a back seat in any effort to negotiate …
