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The White House has dismissed President Zardari's perception that the US-backed coalition is losing out to the Afghan Taliban. "I don't think the president (Barack Obama) would agree with President Zardari's conclusion that war is lost," said the White House spokesman Robert Gibbs.
In his interview with Le Monde, President Zardari had expressed his opinion that the "international community, which Pakistan belongs to, is in the process of losing the war against Taliban...And that is, above all, because we have lost the battle for hearts and minds."
The White House was intrigued as to what had prompted the Pakistani leader to come to this conclusion. But even more intriguing should be the prompt US reaction in that the White House spokesman should just blow off his palm, without offering a rationale, the Pakistani perspective.
Clearly then the two principal allies in the so-called war against terrorism are moving in different directions. President Zardari seems to be rejecting the argument that the coalition should offer negotiations to the Taliban only after tilting the balance of war against them. To him, "reinforcements are only a small part of the response".
"To win the support of the Afghan population, you must bring economic development and prove you cannot only change their lives but improve them." But the coalition appears to be now sharpening its focus on a battlefield victory, particularly with the change of command in the wake of General McChrystal's dismissal.
The growing mismatch stems from the fact that Pakistan is not sold out to a military solution of the Afghan imbroglio; it is for multi-faceted approach with reconciliation among various segments of Afghan society as its main strand.
Nine years on, the war in Afghanistan has lost its rationale; the al Qaeda has been almost eliminated from Afghanistan and the Taliban are now in the war more as nationalists than a Jihadi force. Even the Americans tend to reject the military-exclusive approach of the Obama administration in Afghanistan, as amply reflected from the recent USA Today/Gallup poll which says that President Obama's handling (read troops' surge) of the Afghan conflict has lost much of public support.
Of course it is the immense human cost of the war, also confirmed by the WikiLeaks Afghan war logs, that is now under sharper international focus. Huge collateral damage, relentless drone bombings and frequent 'friendly fires' mainly directed at Afghan soldiers have denuded the Afghan war of any justification, if it had any.
It's a pure and simple campaign to establish military preponderance of US-led Nato forces in a third world country which aside from its strategic location, has the world's largest deposit of lithium, that can turn it into "Saudi Arabia of lithium" in experts opinion. Some may even think the strategic importance of this resource, and not 'al Qaeda' was what prompted the war.
Much more than anyone else it's the Afghans who want an early end to this bloody conflict. And what's wrong if President Zardari thinks that Afghans want to bring to an early end the war by creating an ambience conducive to grand national reconciliation.
That President Zardari hurt the ego of history's most powerful war machine by suggesting that it was losing out to ragtag Taliban militia one wouldn't deny. But that has happened before; France lost to National Liberation Front in Algeria, Britain to Kenya's Mau Mau guerrillas and the American legions to poorly equipped Viet Cong.
Taliban are sons of the soil and are fighting for country and, as he said, the time is on their side. As against them the coalition is beset with increasing unpopularity in its home countries, astronomical financial costs of war and mounting casualties. How else you would describe the state of war in Afghanistan? And who can be better informed on it than the President of Pakistan, which is not only the frontline state in this conflict but also the main collector of its collateral damage?

Copyright Business Recorder, 2010

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