Why the US is afraid of 'Afghanization'

Why the US is afraid of 'Afghanization'
By M K Bhadrakumar
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KI12Df01.html

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Quintessentially, the European leaders called for "Afghanization" within a timeline. Their letter (which was released by Sarkozy's office on Wednesday) suggested that decisions over Afghanistan should not be left solely to the US.

Interestingly, when asked about the letter, Kelly parried that Washington was yet to be seized of its contents. But NATO's new secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen gave away the mood in Washington. He said, "The public discourse has started to go in the wrong direction ... We must stay in Afghanistan as long as necessary, and we will stay as long as necessary. Let no one think that a run for the exits is an option. It is not."

If Rasmussen is to be believed - and he spoke while actually on a visit to Washington on Wednesday - the NATO's continuance in Afghanistan is an objective in itself. Does that objective assume as much importance as "Afghanization" and a final victory over the Taliban? It seems so.

Washington's priority is that the Taliban are destabilizing Central Asia, the North Caucasus as well as China's Xinjiang province and subverting the eastern regions of Iran. A self-serving security paradigm has developed whereby regional instability is threatened by the war, which, in turn, serves to justify the prolonged, indefinite NATO presence in Afghanistan. Clearly, "Afghanization" doesn't fit into this paradigm.

The US's major NATO allies are beginning to catch up with the paradox, finally, that while the growing risk of the war against al-Qaeda and the Taliban becoming a war by foreigners against Afghans must be reduced, "Afghanization" doesn't suit the US objectives.

Old Europeans see no reason why their youth should go and die in the Hindu Kush mountains to subserve the geopolitical agenda regarding NATO expansion. Rasmussen's outburst shows the hour of truth has come.