Afghan President Hamid Karzai confirmed on Thursday that the bases, including in Kabul, Bagram, Mazari Sharif, Jalalabad, Kandahar and Herat, would stay because that was in the interests of Afghanistan.
The U.S. will cut its Afghan troop contingent from about 66,000 now to between 3,000 and 9,000 after 2014.
Foreign military force in Afghanistan fails to make anti-terrorism breakthrough - Putin
Russian President Vladimir Putin forecasts a possibility of exacerbation in Afghanistan and says the international forces have failed to make a breakthrough in fighting terrorism and drug trafficking in that country.
"There are all grounds to believe we may face an exacerbated situation in Afghanistan in the near future," Putin said at a meeting of the Russian Security Council on Wednesday.
"The foreign military contingent, whose backbone is American forces, has not achieved a breakthrough in the fight against terrorist and radical groups as yet; on the contrary, their activity has intensified lately," he stated.
"Besides, there has been a drastic increase in drug production in Afghanistan and formation of stable drug trafficking routes to other countries; unfortunately, Russia is amongst them," the president remarked.
"International terrorist and radical groups do not conceal their plans to export instability," Putin said. "They are trying to spread subversive activity into the territories of neighboring Central Asian countries and Russia," the president said.
"Such developments are fraught with serious risks to us: an increase in drug trafficking and transboundary crime, uncontrolled flows of refugees, migrants, and fundamentalism," he stressed.
The international forces "have done practically nothing to eradicate drug production in Afghanistan," the president said. "Alas, Russian proposals to the effect have been neglected," he said.
Meanwhile, the 2014 will be difficult for Afghanistan, Putin said. He said that the country would have presidential and provincial elections and, "what is especially important, the bulk of the foreign military contingent will be pulled out next year."
Will Afghanistan become the new Somalia?
As the Taliban fighters have begun their annual spring offensive, this time against a background of dwindling numbers of foreign troops, outside parties to the Afghan conflict, primarily the US and Pakistan, step up their efforts to find a solid role for themselves in post-2014 Afghanistan. The goal is simple; to be the first to establish links with the Taliban, widely tipped as the would-be rulers once the West withdraws. The White House recently appointed veteran diplomat James Dobbins as special envoy for AfPak. The nomination comes as a surprise, since Mr. Dobbins is known as an advocate for harsh measures, hardly consistent with the process of troop withdrawal.
As of May 7, the number of US military personnel killed in Afghanistan had reached 2,083, that total is far from final, it is rare for a day to pass without reports of another deadly offensive by the Taliban or an "insider" attack from within the Afghan military against Western troops. With the latter's number dwindling, the current annual spring offensive declared by the Taliban is likely to become the deadliest so far in the 11 year-long period of Western occupation of the country.
In such a context the need becomes pressing for any outside force hoping to preserve (or reestablish) its influence in Afghanistan to approach the Taliban, widely tipped as would-be rulers of the country after the Western troops are totally withdrawn (or, rather, flee).
A call to reconsider Pakistan's support for the U.S. war in Afghanistan and proceed to direct negotiations with the Taliban came on Sunday from the former Pakistani Premier and front-runner in the May 11 general elections, Nawaz Sharif. The call was echoed by clashes between Pakistani and Afghan government troops in the volatile border area on Monday, thus symbolising an irreversible divorce between the Pakistani elite and the current Afghan government, led by Hamid Karzai and doomed to end its tenure as soon as the Western mentors flee, and quite possibly, even earlier.
Signs that the U.S. and its Western allies are also on the brink of totally abandoning Hamid Karzai have appeared lately at an increasingly rapid rate. In fact, the U.S. has regularly shown its willingness to establish direct links with the Taliban. This was the primary task of the previous AfPak special envoy, Marc Grossman who ultimately failed in his efforts and resigned late in 2012 after less than two years in the role.
Now the new appointment to the position is seen as a renewed attempt to revive the process of negotiating with the Taliban. Still, too many observers express doubt that any talks between the U.S. and the Taliban are possible at this moment. Now that the Taliban foresee foreign troop withdrawal in just one and a half years and must already sense the taste of ultimate victory on their lips. It would be a difficult task to persuade them to sit at the negotiations table with the fleeing U.S. and the current "lame duck" government of Afghanistan.
More so, the selection of veteran diplomat James Dobbins as the special envoy for AfPak has raised a number of eyebrows in media and political circles.
Mr. Dobbins is known as a proponent of the counterinsurgency strategy (commonly known as COIN) implemented by the long-gone generals David Petraeus, Stanley McChrystal, and Admiral Michael Mullen. In a 2010 article in Foreign Affairs he sharply attacked COIN's critics, including President Obama's "civilian advisers", among them Vice President Joe Biden who advocated a counterterrorist strategy rather than counterinsurgency.
The difference between the two terms might seem trivial, but in fact it reflects a deep division in approaches to the situation. While counterterrorism means a "light-footprint" presence in the country, fully consistent with the process of troop withdrawal, counterinsurgency, as advocated by James Dobbins, implies a heavy military presence, which is not. allegedly, going to remain after 2014.
It is still unclear whether Mr. Dobbins has now abandoned his previous stance, or the choice was made by President Obama deliberately, in order to create a counterbalance for pragmatics like State Secretary John Kerry and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. But some clues to the answer may be found in James Dobbins' previous service record.
Among his achievements in the State Department are such actions as military intervention in Haiti and Kosovo and overseeing the U.S. troop withdrawal from Somalia. Indeed, the latter gives a clear clue to the whole U.S. policy towards Afghanistan. By drawing the parallel, Washington de facto acknowledges that the Afghan campaign is as disastrous as the 1992–94 campaign in Somalia, and that the future the U.S. has in store for Afghanistan is as gloomy as Somalia's present.
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We discussed these issues with Mikhail Roschin , senior research fellow at the Institute of Oriental Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences, Dmitry Babich, political observer, Andrey Ivanov, senior research fellow at the Centre for East-Asian Studies at the Moscow Institute of International Relations, Igor Zevelev, Moscow-based political analyst.
Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, NATO, US, US Afghan strategy, military base, US troops, US-Afghan relations, World
Source: Ọmọ Oódua News From Nigeria.
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