JUST BECAUSE HE'S IMITATING W DOESN'T MEAN HE UNDERSTANDS WHAT W WAS DOING:

Obama’s confused policies (Kanwal Sibal, 11 Dec 2009 , Indian Express)

Obama’s re-assertion in his December speech that the US “will act with the full recognition that our success in Afghanistan is inextricably linked to our partnership with Pakistan” shows US’ inability to extract itself from a policy rut in dealing with Pakistan. More largesse is promised to ensure Pakistan’s ‘security and prosperity long after the guns have fallen silent’. The exact import of Obama’s assertion that the Pakistani establishment now is clear “that it is the Pakistani people who are the most endangered by extremism” is unclear, as such consciousness may have developed with regard to the depredations of the Pakistani Taliban, but evidence that it extends to the Afghan Taliban, or the Punjab-based jihadi groups, is lacking. It would seem wishful thinking on his part if Obama implies that after Swat and South Waziristan, the Pakistani military will begin operations against the Afghan Taliban. His warning that the US “cannot tolerate a safe haven for terrorists whose location is known, and whose intentions are clear”, may seem a hardening of tone towards Pakistan’s reluctance to act against the Afghan Taliban, but whether Obama will risk extending the scope of cross-frontier attacks in violation of Pakistani sovereignty and provoking a public backlash against the government and the armed forces that, in turn, would make the task of securing Pakistani cooperation more difficult, is doubtful. Such a course of action would, in any case, be incompatible with the concept of an “effective partnership with Pakistan” that he speaks of.

The disquieting ‘new’ element in the December enunciation of his Af-Pak policy is Obama’s readiness to ‘support efforts by the Afghan government to open the door to those Taliban who abandon violence and respect the human rights of their fellow citizens’. Obama does not once, in his speech, mention the term ‘religious extremists’, ‘radical Islamists’, or ‘religious radicals’. Obama is thus demanding an end to violence, not abjuring of extremist religious ideology, even though the two are inextricably linked. How he expects the Taliban, wedded to their obscurantist religious ideology, to subscribe to western constitutional concepts of human rights and abandon those sanctioned by religion is puzzling. Confused policies flow from such confusion in thinking.

The central feature of the new policy is the planned ‘exit strategy’. Obama has announced that he will begin “the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011”. His defensiveness in sanctioning a limited surge is so obvious that apart from spending a good part of his speech in recalling why the US is in Afghanistan, he politically balances the unpopular surge by repeating: “after 18 months, our troops will begin to come home”. No successful military strategy can be based on a retreat announced in advance. “America has no interest in fighting an endless war in Afghanistan”, he says, a dramatic admission on his part that this war is well nigh lost, a message that can only bolster the confidence of the Taliban. “I will not set goals that go beyond our responsibility, our means, or our interests”, he adds, signifying a contraction of America’s role and a startling acknowledgement by him of the diminution of its power to shape even a regional order. The 18-month deadline seems to have been set with the next US presidential election in mind, which suggests that the stakes in Afghanistan are seen as less important than the stakes in that election and Obama’s chances to win a second term.