In another development on Afghanistan issue, the UN has said today that NATO cannot defeat Taliban by force. The recent statement by UN Chief coincided with the Tony Blair’s acceptance of failure in Iraq and the exuberant British and NATO commanders rising optimism after success of operation Medusa. The UN chief went on to conclude that to defeat Taliban it is essential to train the Afghan forces.
On the other hand, British commanders are of the view that the British forces should be pulled from Iraq in order to put that force in Afghanistan as they are thinking that victory is quite near now. Strategically, the British commanders are very correct as it a less difficult position of Allied or NATO force in Afghanistan but still far behind the romantic victory. The fact is as much forces used in Iraq, if would have been used in Afghanistan it might have yielded more positive result than the grand failure in Iraq.
In the meantime, British Prime Minister Tony Blair once again accepted that the Iraq adventure is a disaster, he was speaking in an interview with a television news channel. However, Downing Street lost no time to clarify that the statement was being misinterpreted and in real sense the prime minister was explaining why the disaster took place.
On the other hand, of course Taliban is on the back foot yet not defeated. The Taliban is riding high on the advantage gained by the dubious role played by the none other than Pakistan. The closest ally of U.S. in the region has been proved to a remarkably resilient and flexible enemy for Taliban.
Following the success of Medusa British and the NATO commanders have started to sense that they are close to defeat Taliban and making efforts to bring in more forces to launch a decisive battle in most probably during winters. The argument is based on the fact that commanders are likely to table a request for more combat troops at the annual NATO summit at the end of this month.
As of now taking stock of prevailing overall situation, it is safe to conclude that the lull might be seasonal and it is a well known fact that winter warfare in Afghanistan is unusual.
Another fact is troops and assets have limited value to win Afghan sympathy as it is historically evident in case of erstwhile USSR. The USSR had deployed 10,000 forces during its 10-year presence in Afghanistan and it had spent billions on major projects just to be defeated.
In these conditions, what UN has argued recently is coming absolutely perfect I the Afghanistan frame. The only solution to bring peace in Afghanistan and defeat Taliban is to build relations and trust of the local political leaders, on which allied forces are opposed to each other. Recently Taliban and British forces agreed to withdraw in favor of local militia, leaving U.S. forces fuming.
