Afghanistan

Steve Coll of the New Yorker and NBC's Andrea Mitchell join NBC's David Gregory to discuss the steps Pakistan and Afghanistan are taking to fight the Taliban and bring peace to the troubled area. Link to Transcript

 

Afghan President Hamid Karzai discussed his sometimes-turbulent relationship with the United States on Friday as more details emerged about U.S. airstrikes in his country that killed dozens of people this week.

Karzai reflected on the past seven years of his leadership of Afghanistan and characterized his relationship with the United States as having "serious bumps along the way, especially in the conduct of the war on terror."

Afghan President Hamid Karzai travels to Washington this week to meet with President Obama and with his Pakistani counterpart Asif Zardari.

There will be much to discuss -- principally, of course, how to reverse the rising tide of Talibanization on both sides of the Afghan/Pakistan border, which is a key foreign policy challenge for the Obama administration.

But how long will Obama and Zardari have to deal with Karzai whose five-year presidential term expires this month and who is now up… more

We will need to remind ourselves often in the next few years that the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan is not the Obama administration's fault. It inherited from George W. Bush a crisis so deep and so horribly complex that dealing with it would tax the powers of St Peter, let alone a US government with many other things on its mind and on its grossly overstrained budget. Improving the situation is the best that we can hope for. Finding a "solution" to the Afghan war… more

Steven Clemons, New America Foundation, American Strategy Program Director discusses President Obama's policies on Afghanistan and Pakistan. Link to video

Let me begin by thanking Chairman Smith and the members of the Subcommittee for providing me with the opportunity to testify on this critical issue.

My main focus today will be on resources. As we were reminded by President Obama's presentation last week regarding his administration's new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, counterinsurgency and counterterrorism can be expensive propositions.

He will not take well to being lied to by either Afghanistan or Pakistan, and will be very vigilant in monitoring their agreements and compliance," said Parag Khanna, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, who has coached the Obama campaign on ...

As President Obama orders an additional 21,000 troops to Afghanistan, he faces growing skepticism over the United States' prospects there. Critics of the troop buildup often point out that Afghanistan has long been the "graveyard of empires." In 1842, the British lost a nasty war that ended when fierce tribesmen notoriously destroyed an army of thousands retreating from Kabul. And, of course, the Soviets spent almost a decade waging war in Afghanistan, only to give up ignominiously in 1989.

The plan to devote 4000 new troops to training Afghan forces is another smart call, says Peter Bergen of the New America Foundation: "The Afghan Army has been too small for too long." Obama also won bipartisan praise on the Hill for endorsing the ...

The Obama plan for Afghanistan and Pakistan announced Friday has a great deal to recommend it, with its emphasis on protecting the Afghan population and delivering more aid directly to the Pakistani people instead of to the Pakistan army.

These are just two among a raft of other sensible and long-overdue shifts in South Asia policy.