[Peace-discuss] Obama and the Great Game
Brussel Morton K.
mkbrussel at comcast.net
Fri Feb 13 16:46:56 CST 2009
But I thought the article perceptive, as Buchanon has been on these
foreign policy issues. --mkb
On Feb 13, 2009, at 3:56 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> [A paleo-conservative analysis of the US war in Afghanistan. It
> doesn't go far enough -- it ignores, e.g., the primary US war aim,
> the control of Mideast energy resources -- but it's better that
> anything I've seen in the liberal press, like the recent Newsweek
> account. Has anybody got a counter example?]
>
> Obama and the Great Game
> 02/13/2009
>
> The day before Richard Holbrooke arrived in Kabul, eight suicide
> bombers and gunmen attacked the Justice and Education ministries,
> killing 26 and wounding 57.
>
> Kabul was paralyzed, as the Taliban displayed an ability to wreak
> havoc within a hundred yards of the presidential palace.
>
> The assault came as President Obama is both conducting a strategic
> review and deciding how many additional U.S. troops to send.
>
> Earlier, there was talk of 30,000, bringing the U.S. total to
> 63,000. Now, there are reports Obama may commit no more than the
> three brigades promised in 2008, and only one brigade now.
>
> Clearly, the United States is checking its hole card. Can we draw to
> a winning hand? Or is this hand an inevitable loser -- and we must
> cut our losses and cede the pot? No longer, anywhere, is there talk
> of "victory."
>
> Nor is the diplomatic news good.
>
> Last week, Kyrgyzstan gave us six months to vacate Manas, the air
> base used to resupply U.S. forces. A week before, guerrillas blew up
> a bridge in the Khyber, cutting the 1,000-mile supply line from
> Karachi to Kabul. Before that, guerrillas bombed U.S. truck parks in
> Pakistan.
>
> While in Pakistan, Holbrooke was told by all to whom he spoke that,
> while U.S. Predator strikes may be killing Taliban and al-Qaida, the
> deaths among tribal peoples are turning Pakistan against us.
>
> What would winning Afghanistan for democracy profit us, if the price
> were losing a nuclear-armed Pakistan to Islamism?
>
> The expulsion from Manas, after Kyrgyzstan received a reported $2
> billion in aid from Moscow, raises a question.
>
> Is Russia restarting "The Great Game" she played against Victoria's
> Empire in Central Asia, which ended in 1907 with a British-Russian
> entente, dividing Iran into spheres of influence, with both sides
> agreeing to keep hands off Afghanistan?
>
> As Russia has as great an interest in preventing an Islamist Kabul,
> and has assisted NATO's resupply of its forces, why would Moscow
> seek to expel us from a base vital to the war effort?
>
> Does Russia simply seek to be recognized by the United States as the
> hegemon of Central Asia, the sole great power that decides who can
> and who cannot use former Soviet bases?
>
> For if Manas is closed and the Karachi-Khyber-Kabul supply line is
> compromised or cut, Obama would seem to have but three options.
>
> First would be to go back, hat-in-hand, to Islam Karimov, the Uzbek
> ruler charged with grave human rights violations, and ask him to
> reopen the Karshi-Khanabad (K2) air base, from which we were
> expelled in 2005. And what would be Karimov's asking price?
>
> Second is the Russia option. If Moscow now holds the whip hand in
> the old Soviet republics, what is Moscow's price to let us remain in
> Manas or use other Soviet bases over which it wields veto power?
>
> The answer is obvious. Neither Georgia nor Ukraine is to be brought
> into NATO. The independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, won in
> the August war with Georgia, is not to be challenged. The U.S anti-
> missile missiles planned for Poland are not to be deployed.
>
> In turn, Russia will cancel any missile deployment in Kaliningrad,
> recommits to the terms of all conventional forces agreements in
> Europe and assist in the effort in Afghanistan. Russia rejoins the
> West, and the West stays off Russia's front porch.
>
> Be not surprised if the Russians come trolling before an
> overextended American empire an end to the Great Game in Central
> Asia like the one the ministers of Nicholas II offered the ministers
> of Edward VII.
>
> And the third option? It is Iran.
>
> Before 9-11, Iran was more hostile to the anti-Shia Taliban than we,
> and it has no desire to see them return. Indeed, Tehran was a
> supporter of the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as both were
> ruled by mortal enemies.
>
> The long way for U.S. and NATO war materiel to reach Kabul via Iran
> would be through a Turkey-Kurdistan-Iran supply line. The shorter
> would be from Iranian ports straight into Afghanistan.
>
> Price of an entente? An end to the 30-year U.S.-Iranian cold war and
> a strategic bargain whereby Iran is allowed to develop peaceful
> nuclear power, under supervision, the United States lifts its
> embargo, and regime change is left to the Iranian people.
>
> President Ahmadinejad, no fool, and facing an uncertain election
> this year, is already signaling interest in negotiations with Obama.
>
> A complication. How would "Bibi" Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman
> regard a U.S.-Iran rapprochement -- to prevent a Taliban triumph in
> Kabul?
>
> Yet, if the Taliban's enemies in Russia, Iran, Pakistan and Central
> Asia will not assist us, this war cannot end well. And if they will
> not help, Obama should cut America's losses, come home and let their
> neighbors deal with a triumphant Taliban.
>
> --Patrick J. Buchanan
>
> Mr. Buchanan is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of
> Churchill, Hitler, and "The Unnecessary War": How Britain Lost Its
> Empire and the West Lost the World, "The Death of the West,", "The
> Great Betrayal," "A Republic, Not an Empire" and "Where the Right
> Went Wrong."
>
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