February 07, 2008
More Warnings Delivered On Afghanistan
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice denied that her surprise visit to Kandahar today was Washington's way of sticking it to NATO allies not doing their fair share in Afghanistan.
"It's just the rationale of being able to get outside of Kabul and see one of the areas that's been very active," Rice said before touching down, according to Reuters. "I don't think there's any message there to anyone."
Poignantly -- or not, if Rice's statement is taken at face value -- she and British Foreign Secretary David Miliband were touring Kandahar, a former Taliban stronghold in the country's south. Most trips by top foreign dignitaries are confined to the much safer capital city of Kabul. Kandahar remains dangerous, but it is also a prime example of the effectiveness of NATO forces in the fight against the Taliban and al-Qaida.
And in what has over the years become a ritual, Afghan President Hamid Karzai denied there were tensions between his government and its Western allies.
Karzai insisted that he'd been "misquoted" during recent remarks in which he appeared to blame the deteriorating situation in Helmand province on British troops. "We appreciate the British role in Afghanistan and the contribution they have made," he said.
But British-Afghan relations are at a low not just because of those remarks. Last week, Karzai rejected the appointment of Lord Paddy Ashdown to take on the role of special U.N. envoy for Afghanistan. Karzai today denied he shot down the Briton to make a point, saying that the failed appointment was a "personal matter of sadness."
Some of the tensions are historical. (See BBC News' analysis here.) And some are uniquely modern. Karzai is completely dependent on the West for security and other aid, and he is expected to take a strong stand against the Taliban and its sympathizers. At the same time, he must take pains to convince Afghans he's not an American puppet. (Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki surely feels Karzai's pain.)
In remarks to reporters yesterday, Rice seemed to warn NATO that the future of the alliance was at stake. Member nations have been ratcheting down their involvement over the years, and most recently, Germany rejected a U.S. request to contribute more troops to Afghanistan's volatile south.
Also yesterday, in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, "I worry a great deal about the alliance evolving into a two-tiered alliance, in which you have some allies willing to fight and die to protect people's security, and others who are not." Last week, he privately called out Germany and other nations for failing to live up to NATO's mandate in a letter to his counterpart there. The tone of the contents, though not Gates' exact words, were made public by offended German officials.
Afghanistan will be topic No. 1 when NATO's defense ministers sit down in Vilnius, Lithuania, today. Canada is threatening to end its combat role by next year if troop contributions don't start coming in from other nations.
NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer stressed the alliance's unity ahead of the defense conference and urged Gates to keep his criticisms behind closed doors. But he also warned that NATO's unraveling could invite more terrorist attacks against the West.
Posted at 12:00 PM
Posted to:
Afghanistan, Al-Qaida, Asia, Bush Administration, Condoleezza Rice, Europe, Germany, Robert Gates, Terrorism, U.K.
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