[R-G] US/AFGHANISTAN: Deadly Assault Could Alter Campaign Dynamics

[Anthony Fenton]

US/AFGHANISTAN:  Deadly Assault Could Alter Campaign Dynamics
Analysis by Jim Lobe*
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43183

WASHINGTON, Jul 14 (IPS) - If nothing else, the deaths Sunday of nine  
U.S. soldiers at a remote outpost in eastern Afghanistan close to the  
Pakistan border are likely to bring home to the U.S. electorate what  
top national security officials have been saying for much of the past  
year -- that the central front in Washington's "global war on  
terrorism" has moved eastwards about 1,800 kms from Iraq.

That realisation could have a major impact on the U.S. presidential  
elections, despite the fact that the economy has replaced the Iraq War  
as the issue that voters are most concerned about.

While Republican Sen. John McCain, like the White House itself, has  
insisted that victory in Iraq must be priority number one for U.S.  
foreign policy, his presumptive Democratic rival, Sen. Barack Obama,  
and his top advisers have repeatedly warned that the situation in  
Afghanistan and the frontier regions of Pakistan required much more  
attention and resources than President George W. Bush has been willing  
to give it.

Indeed, in a column coincidentally published by the New York Times  
Monday, Obama called for a "new strategy" in Afghanistan, including  
the deployment there of "at least two additional combat  
brigades ...and more non-military assistance to accomplish the mission  
there." At a campaign appearance Sunday, he called Afghanistan and the  
border areas "the real centre for terrorist activity that we have to  
deal with and deal with aggressively."

The nine U.S. soldiers died when some 200 Taliban insurgents,  
reportedly from Pakistan, as well as Afghanistan, penetrated a  
recently built outpost in Kunar province in a coordinated assault.  
Fifteen other U.S. troops and four Afghan Army soldiers were also  
wounded in the raid, which was eventually repelled after air support  
was called in. As many as 40 of the attackers were killed, according  
to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Kabul.

The U.S. death toll was the largest since 16 troops were killed when a  
military helicopter was shot down by the Taliban in Kunar three years  
ago and, as noted by the Los Angeles Times, "accelerated what had  
already been a rapidly rising fatality count among coalition troops in  
Afghanistan."

In May and June alone, some 69 U.S. and NATO soldiers were killed in  
Afghanistan, exceeding the death toll of U.S.-led coalition troops  
killed in Iraq during the same period.

Sunday's attack coincided with the visit by the chairman of the Joint  
Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen, to Pakistan -- his fourth so far  
this year -- to underline growing U.S. unhappiness, and even  
exasperation, with Islamabad's alleged failure to prevent Taliban  
forces, both Afghan and Pakistani, from infiltrating into Afghanistan.

That failure is due primarily to the effective takeover during the  
past several years of much of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas  
(FATA) and parts of the North-West Frontier Province by Pakistan's own  
Taliban. It and its allies have, in turn, provided a safe haven for  
both Afghanistan's Taliban and al Qaeda, which, according to the U.S.  
intelligence community, has reconstituted much of its training and  
planning capabilities, including its capacity to mount a direct attack  
on the U.S. "homeland".

Indeed, it was Mullen who warned in March that, "If I were going to  
pick the next attack to hit the United States, it would come out of  
the FATA," a warning that was echoed the following month by a  
devastating critique by Congress' investigative arm, the Government  
Accountability Office (GAO), of what it said was the Bush  
administration's failure to develop a comprehensive strategy for  
dealing with the growing threat developing in the region.

Both Mullen and his boss, Defence Secretary Robert Gates, have made  
little secret of their impatience to send some 10,000 more U.S. troops  
-- the same number urged by Obama -- to add to the some 34,000 already  
deployed there. But, with the White House unwilling to risk the  
progress it has made in curbing the violence in Iraq and U.S. ground  
forces already over-stretched, they say Afghanistan will have to wait  
until more troops are withdrawn from Iraq.

Ironically, their hopes appear to rest primarily with the current Iraq  
commander, Gen. David Petraeus, who was just confirmed by the Senate  
last week as the new head of U.S. Central Command (Centcom), giving  
him responsibility for Southwest Asia, as well as Iraq and the rest of  
the Middle East.

Petraeus, who has enjoyed extraordinary access to the White House and  
Bush himself, will take over Centcom at the beginning of September,  
after he completes a review of the situation in Iraq to determine  
whether he thinks it will be possible to reduce troop levels below the  
140,000 that is to be reached by the end of this month.

Until recently, Petraeus had reportedly advised against any further  
withdrawals through the end of the year. But, with his broader Centcom  
responsibilities looming, and the continuing deterioration in  
Afghanistan and Pakistan, some insiders have suggested that he has  
become more flexible.

If so, McCain, whose chief advantage over Obama is the perception that  
he is stronger on national security and the "war on terror", may look  
as if he had underestimated the threat to the east.

Indeed, in a press release issued Monday, the McCain campaign, citing  
statements by Petraeus in April and, ironically, by Osama bin Laden in  
2004, reiterated that Iraq remains "the central front in the war on  
terrorism". Neither the release nor a teleconference by his foreign  
policy spokesmen mentioned Sunday's attack or the deteriorating  
situation in Afghanistan other than asserting that it was "an  
important front in the war on terror".

Obama, whose scheduled trip next week to both Iraq and Afghanistan  
will almost certainly dominate news coverage back home and thus  
provide him with a golden opportunity to expound his views, may look  
prescient by September when Petraeus completes his assessment.

*Jim Lobe's blog on U.S. foreign policy, and particularly the neo- 
conservative influence in the Bush administration, can be read at http://www.ips.org/blog/jimlobe/ 
.

(END/2008)