Afghanistan is the main topic of the day as all the papers preview the announcement President Obama will make today about changes to the American strategy to decrease violence in the war-torn country that will place lots of emphasis on Pakistan. Obama will announce plans to send 4,000 military trainers to Afghanistan in the fall, which will be on top of the additional 17,000 combat troops the president authorized last month and “hundreds” of U.S. civilian officials. USA Today points out that sending additional aid workers “follows Obama’s previous statements that Afghanistan can’t be tamed by military force alone.” For the first time, the U.S. government will explicitly tie future aid to certain benchmarks that will measure how much the Afghan and Pakistani governments are doing to fight al-Qaida and the Taliban. In demanding concrete results from the two countries, Obama “is replicating a strategy used in Iraq two years ago,” notes the New York Times. The Los Angeles Times highlights that the new strategy comes at a time when Afghanistan’s former Taliban leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, “is pursuing a determined effort to reclaim power.” The Wall Street Journal notes that the Pentagon is considering setting up “a new U.S. military command in southern Afghanistan,” which would “signal increasing American control over the war effort.” The Washington Post highlights that the new strategy will involve a significant increase in the financial commitment to both Afghanistan and Pakistan and increase U.S. military expenses in Afghanistan by around 60 percent this year.
The NYT places Obama’s plan as one piece in its two-story lead. The paper’s main story reveals that Taliban leaders in Pakistan and Afghanistan have decided to set aside their differences and work together in a new offensive in Afghanistan to greet the buildup of American troops. In an impressive feat of reporting, the NYT talked to several Taliban fighters along the border region who say a group of younger commanders has recently been promoted to carry out a stepped-up campaign of attacks against U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
The NYT says Mullah Omar sent emissaries to his counterparts in Pakistan to convince them to focus on Afghanistan so the Taliban can greet American troops with a renewed display of force. The Pakistani Taliban has been divided into three branches that haven’t always seen eye-to-eye, but Mullah Omar apparently urged them to set aside their differences so they can all work together against the Americans. This renewed cooperation has raised fears among NATO commanders that the violence in Afghanistan will soon get much worse. Taliban fighters say they have reason to worry and predicted that it would be a “very bloody” year.
Obama’s new plan for the Afghanistan-Pakistan region comes after a two-month review that began pretty much as soon as he moved into the White House. The president “will describe it as a sharp break with what officials called a directionless and under-resourced conflict inherited from the Bush administration,” notes the Post. Essentially, the White House hopes to bring an end to the growing insurgency, by focusing on “building local governments, wooing the civilian population with aid and providing more help to the Afghan army,” USAT summarizes. The administration is convinced that a significant proportion of insurgents can be induced to support their local governments. The WSJ points out that the Obama administration is explicitly moving away from the Bush administration’s broad goal of building a healthy democracy in Afghanistan to focus more specifically on defeating al-Qaida and the Taliban. The efforts will also place a specific focus on fighting the narcotics trade in Afghanistan.
The NYT notes that the goals Obama will outline “may be elusive and, according to some critics, even naive.” The administration wants to get several countries, including China, Russia, and India, involved by specifying that the Afghan war is a regional issue in which everyone has a stake. Still, Obama seems to have accepted the fact that other NATO members aren’t likely to contribute more combat troops to the effort and instead will ask European countries to send more trainers and economic aid to the region.
Officials say the benchmarks for Afghanistan and Pakistan are still being developed, but they emphasized that the demands will be strict. Placing conditions on aid for Pakistan might prove particularly difficult since similar, less ambitious efforts have been resisted in the past. But the administration is determined to move away from the old way of doing things. “We’re going to move from a policy of throwing money at Pakistan and then ignoring it to a policy of consistency and constancy,” a senior administration official said.
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Full article: http://www.slate.com/id/2214791/
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