Obama welcomes Albania, Croatia to NATO - International Peace/War

Obama welcomes Albania, Croatia to NATO
by Robert Burns via rialator - AFP Saturday, Apr 4 2009, 5:57am
international / peace/war / other press

[Those who hesitate (Kosovo) are lost, comrades!]

STRASBOURG, France (AP) — Asserting his voice at NATO, President Barack Obama on Saturday welcomed Albania and Croatia to the alliance and declared to other nations that "the door to membership will remain open."

"It is a measure of our vitality that we are still welcoming new members," Obama said of NATO, which is marking its 60th anniversary at a summit dominated by the war in Afghanistan.

Obama, the one doing the welcoming, is himself new to the table. He is taking part in his first NATO summit and seeking support from allied nations toward the plodding effort in Afghanistan, where the new U.S. president is sending in more troops and civilian help.

As the leaders got down to business, the two NATO summit hosts, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, made it clear they embraced new U.S. leadership. "We are very pleased to work with him," Sarkozy said of Obama. "We trust him."

Meanwhile, outside, police fired tear gas and flash bombs at protesters throwing Molotov cocktails and rocks less than 2 miles from the gathering of world leaders. First lady Michelle Obama and other spouses canceled a visit to a cancer hospital out of concern for security, the French president's office said.

One of NATO'S stickiest political issues is how and where to grow. Germany, France and many other NATO nations fear any more NATO eastward expansion will further damage the alliance's ties to Russia.

Said Obama: "The door to membership will remain open for other countries that meet NATO standards and can make a meaningful contribution to allied security."

Founded in 1949, NATO has added members since the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, its Soviet-dominated Cold War foe. In contrast to the alliance's previous eastward expansion, which infuriated Russia, Moscow has not objected to the inclusion of Albania and Croatia in NATO.

Albania and Croatia officially joined NATO this week. Obama praised them for having already deployed troops to the NATO-led force in Afghanistan, calling that commitment a sign that both countries will be strong contributors.

"We are proud to have you as allies," Obama said. He also made a pitch for Macedonia and said he looks forward to the day when it will would join the alliance, too. Macedonia's accession to NATO has been stalled over a dispute with Greece.

Earlier, in a move symbolic of NATO's unity, Obama began his Saturday by joining Merkel and other heads of states in walking along a pedestrian bridge that links Germany and France across the Rhine River. The leaders met Sarkozy at the center of the bridge, then crossed together onto the French side in Strasbourg and posed for a group photo.

In the midst of an eight-day trip abroad, Obama says it is a new day in U.S.-European relations. But he is likely to encounter the same old story of allied reluctance to send more troops to Afghanistan.

The European allies may pony up a marginal increase in forces keyed to preparations for Afghanistan's national elections in August, but the Obama administration is pinning its main hopes on getting more civilian contributions — particularly trainers for the Afghan police.

At the summit's opening on Friday, capped by a working dinner in nearby Baden-Baden, Germany, Obama promised to repair damaged relations with Europe, asked for support of his new war strategy in Afghanistan and pledged a U.S. commitment to global elimination of nuclear weapons — in the name of keeping nuclear arms out of the hands of terrorists.

The summit's co-hosts, Sarkozy and Merkel, both were quick to offer support for Obama's new Afghan strategy of sending American reinforcements and bolstering the training of Afghan forces. But they would go no farther.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said securing new commitments from allies would neither begin nor end with the NATO meetings, noting that nations need more time to digest Obama's revamped war strategy. [It's always WAR with the USA.] Obama's national security adviser, retired Gen. James Jones, [who takes his "orders from Henry Kissinger"] said 'Obama's' new approach to Afghanistan, which calls for widening the approach to include more civilian effort and broadening the focus to include Pakistan, would inspire fresh involvement. "I think there's a new mood," Jones said. [Emphases and bracket inserts added]

(Mark S. Smith contributed to this story from Strasbourg.)

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press

‘It is an infallible rule that a prince who is not wise himself cannot be well advised … wise counsels, from whoever they come, must necessarily be due to the prudence of the prince, and not the prudence of the prince to the wise counsel received.’

Niccolo Machiavelli’s sage words aptly sum up the predicament of President Barack Obama on Afghanistan. Unlike his predecessor George W. Bush and his equally rash bunch of advisers, Obama is a sensible man. However, the haste he has shown in crafting a policy on Afghanistan does not reflect wisdom.

He ordered ‘a careful policy review … as soon as I took office’ he said on March 27 in a speech which, like all American pronouncements from on high, did not err on the side of brevity. His own understanding of that country and this region, as his campaign speeches revealed, was not profound. His advisers are none too blessed with the knowledge or understanding either. The highest in the intelligence services confessed to an ‘appalling’ ignorance of the command structure of the Taliban whom his book The Audacity of Hope ignores. It has brief references only to Al Qaeda.

What is it that emboldened Obama to think that he would hit upon a cure for the ills in Kabul in record speed? The recipe prescribed in the speech does not reckon with the one fundamental issues that lies at the root of the problem — the presence of foreign troops on Afghan soil. They went there to be rid of Al Qaeda. The Taliban were affected because they had extended hospitality to its chief Osama bin Laden. Second only to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, her colleague Karl F. Inderfurth was responsible for snubbing the Taliban’s many overtures and for, thus, hardening their attitude. Disdain for diplomacy and indifference to other people’s sentiments are the twin hallmarks of American diplomacy.

They were reflected in an article by Inderfurth and James Dobbins, a Bush official, published on the day Obama spoke. They were reflected in the president’s speech as well. Inderfurth and Dobbins first lay out the sketch of an impressive edifice of an international treaty which ensures peace in Afghanistan and in the region. The US and its allies will ‘withdraw all forces from Afghanistan once these other provisions (of the treaty) had been implemented’.

That is a consummation devoutly to be wished for. But how will it be achieved? By the use of military force. ‘More western troops and economic assistance, more sophisticated military tactics and greater civilian capacity will be needed to turn the tide that is currently running against Nato….’

Obama’s proposals are no different. Deployment of more US troops. ‘That’s how we will prepare Afghans to take responsibility for their security, and how we will ultimately be able to bring our own troops home.’ Is this a realistic exit strategy?

The goal is defined thus: ‘to disrupt, dismantle and defeat Al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future.’ To this end ‘we must isolate Al Qaeda from the Pakistani people (sic)’ — a strange formulation. Even The Economist came to realise by March 28 that ‘America’s bombing raids inside Pakistan probably are counterproductive, and should stop’. Economic aid to Pakistan will be coupled with demands for greater commitment to rooting out Al Qaeda and for denial of safe havens to it.

Afghanistan is also asked to meet certain tests. It must wipe out ‘the corruption that causes Afghans to lose faith in their own leaders’. One wishes President Obama will also direct his energies to rooting out corruption in both houses of his US Congress — that pork system particularly — which causes the American people ‘to lose faith in their own people’.

There is no effort to distinguish between the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Their agendas differ, as they have always differed. The Kabul correspondent of The Economist reported ‘For most Taliban fighters, the ideology of global jihad is less important than other things: Pakhtun nationalism; opposition to the western invasion; desire to defend conservative Muslim values deemed to be under attack; and a raft of local grievances, tribal frictions, inter-ethnic conflicts and competition for power and resources.

‘Most analysts think that the irreconcilable ideological component of the Taliban remains in the minority. What is not so clear is the answer to the first question: how does one go about engaging with the Taliban? So far, the western aim has been to defeat them; little thought has been given to coming to terms with them. Taliban representatives were not invited to the Bonn conference of 2001, which was supposed to lay the foundations for an Afghan political settlement. (Many analysts have argued that that was a mistake). Since then, other Afghans have used their positions in power to marginalise many who might otherwise have been brought into the political process. The result has been that whole sections of the populace in the Pakhtun south feel alienated, a problem sometimes compounded by the clodhopping tactics of Nato-led forces.’

In contrast, to Richard Holbrooke, Obama’s special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, the real source of the problem lies in Pakistan. The Taliban, he told Nato ambassadors, were only the ‘outer rim’ of a global jihadist movement. Familiarity with this region was not one of Holbrooke’s qualifications. He is a man who would rather be wrong in speech than be right in silence.

Finally, Obama proposes ‘a new Contact Group for Afghanistan and Pakistan’ comprising all the stakeholders in the region from the Gulf nations to Central Asia; Iran Russia, India and China included. A group as large as this cannot serve as an efficient contact group. Its members do not see eye to eye. Some reject Obama’s theses on the entire region.

The day Obama spoke, a special conference on Afghanistan met in Moscow. Convened by the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, with India and Pakistan participating, it threw its hat in the ring: ‘The SCO was one of the appropriate fora for a wide dialogue’ on the issues related to Afghanistan. It proposed an ‘SCO-Afghanistan Action Plan’. Obama has a lot to learn — and unlearn.

© 2009 Dawn Media Group

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