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The unfinished, almost forgotten war in Afghanistan could get even worse because of the Pakistan crisis



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Bush and his crew are trying to get a handle on the situation in Pakistan and how it affects Afghanistan. If Bush had focused on Afghanistan in 2002 instead of launching the war in Iraq, he might have a handle on the situation. Reading the article in today's Washington Post by Thomas Ricks and Robin Wright, it's hard not to think that the failure to effectively fight the war in Afghanistan led, at least in part, to today's crisis. And, it's hard not to factor in that the Iraq war was the major distraction that undermined the operations in Afghanistan. It's all related:

U.S. officials fear that a renewed campaign by Islamic militants aimed at the Pakistani government, and based along the border with Afghanistan, would complicate U.S. policy in the region by effectively merging the six-year-old war in Afghanistan with Pakistan's growing turbulence.

"The fates of Afghanistan and Pakistan are inextricably tied," said J. Alexander Thier, a former United Nations official in Afghanistan who is now at the U.S. Institute for Peace.
A.J. Rossmiller is, of course, my foreign policy guru, but I find Ricks (who wrote Fiasco) and Wright are very smart, insightful foreign policy reporters. There's more after the break, but the entire piece is worth a read.

U.S. military officers and other defense experts do not anticipate an immediate impact on U.S. operations in Afghanistan. But they are concerned that continued instability eventually will spill over and intensify the fighting in Afghanistan, which has spiked in recent months as the Taliban has strengthened and expanded its operations.

Unrest in Pakistan and increasing fuel prices have already boosted the cost of food in Afghanistan, making it more likely that hungry Afghans will be lured by payments from the Taliban to participate in attacks, a U.S. Army officer in Afghanistan said.

In a secure videoconference yesterday linking officials in Washington, Islamabad and Crawford, Tex., Bush received briefings from CIA Director Michael V. Hayden and U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Anne W. Patterson, said National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe. Bush then discussed Bhutto's assassination and U.S. efforts to stabilize Pakistan with his top foreign policy advisers, including Vice President Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley, as well as Adm. William J. Fallon of Central Command and Marine Gen. James E. Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.


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