| Could also be titled "The Perils of Perv." |
By AHMED RASHID
 As unprecedented Taliban violence sweeps across southern Afghanistan, four players in the region – Afghanistan, Pakistan, the US and NATO – are locked in a tense standoff rather than cooperating to defeat the terrorists. At stake is the future survival of Afghanistan’s moderate government and stability in Pakistan.
To prop up Afghanistan and combat the Taliban, the US and NATO may have to make major concessions to PakistanÂ’s military regime, but any concessions would anger the Afghans, encourage the extremists and allow the unpopular military to dominate PakistanÂ’s political scene for another five years.
More than 200 people were killed and hundreds wounded in fierce fighting that swept four provinces in southern Afghanistan starting May 18 and continued for the next three days. It was the worst bout of violence since the defeat of the Taliban in December 2001 and the opening shots in a promised Taliban offensive this summer to deter some 9,000 NATO troops from deploying in southern Afghanistan.
| However, it was the Talibs who took the heavy casualties. They knew they were going to take them, of course, but the offensive was for political purposes — so that the Western press would think there was something serious going on. |
 "NATO will not fail in AfghanistanÂ….the family of nations will expect nothing less than success," said General James Jones, the head of US and NATO forces in Europe, adding that NATO will double its deployment in Afghanistan to 18,000 troops. Jones also made an impassioned plea for NATO governments to end the caveats that they impose on their troops, making it next to impossible for commanders to run a proper military campaign. The caveats number 71, and Jones calls them "NATOÂ’s operational cancerÂ’Â’ and "an impediment to success."
| They're NATO's foot in a bucket, and they render NATO operations useless. Either they'll fall by the wayside under combat conditions, or the NATO countries will one by one withdraw their troops, leaving the job to the Americans, the Aussies, and the Afghans. I put NATO as a force in almost the same category I put the Pak army. |
President Hamid Karzai and the Afghans worry about NATO. Unlike the US-led combat force, some NATO countries contribute troops only for reconstruction.
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