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| India-Pakistan |
| US, allies should contain terrorists along Pak-Afghan border: IISS |
| 2010-09-08 |
| [Pak Daily Times] The US-led coalition's strategy in Afghanistan is too ambitious and instead it should counter the threat of bad turban attacks along the Afghan-Pakistain border, a British think tank said on Tuesday. The call by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) came as the public and governments in NATO countries tire of the nine-year-old war. "For Western states to be pinned down militarily and psychologically in Afghanistan will not be in the service of their wider political and security interests," IISS Director General John Chipman told a news conference. The coalition's original goal of defeating al Qaeda in Afghanistan and preventing its return had ballooned into a comprehensive strategy to develop and modernise Afghanistan, Chipman said at the launch of 'Strategic Survey 2010', the institute's annual review of world affairs. "Defeat of the Taliban was seen as virtually synonymous with the defeat of al Qaeda, even though much of its organised capacities had been displaced to Pakistain," he said. Finding a constitutional settlement that recognised Afghan realities would need an enormous political effort that included not just all the local players but all regional states, he said. "That in time might be necessary. In the interim... it is necessary and advisable for outside powers to move to a containment and deterrence policy to deal with the international terrorist threat from the Afghan-Pakistain border regions," he said. Ambitious: Chipman called US President Barack B.O.Obama's counter-insurgency strategy "too ambitious" and said the coalition should draw up a containment strategy now to implement as combat forces withdrew. Such a strategy would have political, diplomatic, economic and military elements. "It would require political deals in Afghanistan and among key regional powers including India, Pakistain, Iran and the central Asian states," he said. |
| Posted by:Fred |