Our Wonderful Af/Pak Allies Posted by Michael Cohen

So while political Washington has completely lost its mind over the President’s birth certificate  . . . there’s actually a war going on in Afghanistan. It’s being fought by real flesh and blood American soldiers.  And it’s not going well.

Yesterday, nine Americans (8 soldiers and 1 civilian) were murdered at Kabul airport by a disgruntled Afghan Air Force officer. Now having spent several hours at the Kabul airport I would have to say this is one of the more secure locations in Afghanistan with more security than you can shake a large stick at. That even here American servicemen are not safe from violence is troubling indeed. That these soldiers were killed by an individual nominally fighting on the same side as the US against Taliban is even more upsetting. That this attack is the seventh time this year that Afghans in police or military garb have killed NATO or Afghan forces (24 of them) . . . well you get the idea.

But as long as we’re on the subject of terrible American allies, how about that Pakistani government? According to the Wall Street Journal the Pakistani foreign minister recently met with President Karzai and advised him to go tell the US to fly a kite:

Pakistan is lobbying Afghanistan's president against building a long-term strategic partnership with the U.S., urging him instead to look to Pakistan—and its Chinese ally—for help in striking a peace deal with the Taliban and rebuilding the economy, Afghan officials say.

The pitch was made at an April 16 meeting in Kabul by Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, who bluntly told Afghan President Hamid Karzai that the Americans had failed them both, according to Afghans familiar with the meeting. Mr. Karzai should forget about allowing a long-term U.S. military presence in his country, Mr. Gilani said, according to the Afghans. 

It should be noted here that the official telling President Karzai to break with the Americans is not a member of the Pakistani military or the ISI. It's the country's foreign minister (a member of the civilian government), who is trying to convince Karzai that he would be better off abandoning the country that provides Pakistan with $1.5 billion a year in assistance. 

And here's my favorite part:

Pakistani officials say they no longer have an incentive to follow the American lead in their own backyard. "Pakistan is sole guarantor of its own interest," said a senior Pakistani official. "We're not looking for anyone else to protect us, especially the U.S. If they're leaving, they're leaving and they should go."

"No longer" have any incentive! Ha! Remind me again when that incentive to follow the American lead actually did exist.  

And yet it seems some American officials are still holding out hope that this represents a good development for US-Pakistani relations. In a follow-up piece in the Washington Post, Josh Paltrow quotes an American official:

“The good news,” the official said, “is that I think that there’s some prospect that Afghanistan will become the common ground on which the U.S. and Pakistan” can solidify their relationship.

I'm not really sure how this latest incident leads to that conclusion. In fact, what this does show is how decidedly the US and Pakistan don't see eye to eye on the future of Afghanistan. But of course that has been obvious for a decade no matter what US officials try to convince themselves of.

Apparently all this political wrangling has left our other great ally Hamid Karzai not sure of what to do - although this also could just be a move on his part to wring more concessions out of Washington in upcoming talks about a long-term strategic partnership between the US and Afghanistan. I guess those American soldiers being maimed and killed (in part by bombs built in Pakistan) is not enough to sway Karzai toward the US side.

So to sum up, we have American soldiers being killed by the same Afghan security forces that we are spending billions of dollars to train and fight the Taliban; we have the President of Afghanistan discussing with the Pakistani foreign minister abandoning the United States; and we have the Pakistani foreign minister actively working to undermine US interests in Afghanistan. 

Other than all that the war seems to be going great.

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I just wanted to lob a quick told-ya-so at all those fervent COIN supporters who got what they wanted when we had that debate. Are you satisfied with what COIN has achieved so far? Still think CT was a bad idea? Yeah, thought so...

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Of course, we could leave.
Although estimates of Afghan civilian estimates are sketchy, it would appear they've lost many more lives than the U.S. and its allies. In other words, they have many reasons not to trust us which gives good reason for them to turn to Pakistan. Well after we're gone, Pakistan will be there. I think good diplomatic relations will be beneficial for both those nations.
It seems a trend, U.S. brings lots of money, corruption flourishes.
Both Pakistan and particularly Afghanistan need to get by without us. They've only been doing so for centuries. I would imagine they can now.

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