By Syed Saleem Shahzad
NEW YORK – United States President Barack Obama’s speech on Wednesday, the second day of the 64th summit of the United Nations General Assembly, was a strident challenge to world leaders – an ostensible rallying cry to join the US and its allies in the war in Afghanistan.
“Those who used to chastise America for acting alone in the world cannot now stand by and wait for America to solve the world’s problems alone,” said Obama, in what many see as preparation for an expected troop surge in Afghanistan.
An even clearer signal of Washington’s quest for stronger participation from its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the non-NATO allies, was a secret meeting between Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Central Intelligence Agency director Leon Panetta at New York’s Barclay Hotel earlier this week.
The meeting, reluctantly confirmed by Pakistani officials, was meant to review the next stage in the post-Afghan presidential elections and the regional “war on terror” theater. This next chapter in the war, many experts believe, will be its hottest time to date.
A formal request to Obama from the top US commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, to send more troops in Afghanistan is likely to be made soon. The Pentagon’s rationale for the increase is the upward spiral of Taliban violence – but some feel it has as much to do with protecting Pakistan.
Despite the excellent performance of the Pakistani armed forces against the Taliban in the Pakistani tribal areas and the Malakand area, Washington remains unsure over the level of the Pakistan army’s cooperation. The Pentagon was quick to note that Pakistan army leaders recently refused a ground operation in the North and South Waziristan tribal areas on the border with Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, McChrystal is expected to ask for at least 40,000 additional troops to be deployed mainly in the southern border provinces with Pakistan, such as Helmand and Ghazni, and provinces such as Wardak and Kapisa, in Afghanistan’s northeast. The troops will reportedly undertake active operations against the Taliban as well as regular ground campaigns.
The Obama administration is worried that if Pakistan changes course and becomes inactive, US forces could be trapped along the border – resulting in an horrific casualty rate that would be catastrophic for the White House in the mid-term US elections next year.
The indications from different Asia Times Online sources are that next summer the battle between the Taliban and NATO forces will no longer be restricted to Afghanistan – it will expand inside Pakistan. The primary reason for this, sources say, is the deployment of coalition forces in Afghan border provinces such as Helmand.
The Taliban’s main sanctuary in Helmand is Gereshk district, which borders the Pakistani district of Noshki. The porous border between Noshki and Gereshk serves as a haven for anti-Western Taliban fighters as well as anti-Pakistan Baloch insurgents.
Neither Afghan nor NATO authorities have any control in the region – and neither does Pakistan. As a result, it is inevitable that in hot pursuit of the Taliban through the area, NATO troops will cross into Pakistan and expand the war. This threat also looms over Afghanistan’s Kunar province and Pakistan’s Mohmand area and some other tribal areas, but to a lesser degree compared to Helmand.