"It doesn't need to be a democracy, just secure." That's how a senior NATO official described the new, lower goalposts for Afghanistan. From The Guardian:
Richard Holbrooke, Barack Obama's new envoy for Afghanistan, General James Jones, the new White House national security adviser, and General David Petraeus, the new commander of the Afghan campaign, all stressed that the US president's policy on the Taliban and al-Qaida would be governed by "attainable goals" matched by "adequate resources".
In the first major foreign policy speech from the new administration, the vice-president, Joe Biden, told a security conference in Munich that the strategic review on Afghanistan under way in Washington would "make sure that our goals are clear and achievable".
Notable by its absence in any of the speeches from the American team was any mention of building democracy in Afghanistan. Instead, the emphasis was on creating sustainable security to try to prevent the Taliban from extending their grip on the country.
Is this surrender, a capitulation of the neo-con vision of secular democracy for Afghanistan? Perhaps but, seven years down the neo-con road, you have to ask just how well that vision was advancing?
Obama's pragmatism surfaced at a moment when the United States and Britain are renewing calls for NATO members to increase troop support in Afghanistan.
British defense minister John Hutton argued , "This is not an aberration. This is the pattern of future conflicts. I do not believe we are properly preparing for it."
Nato should show a "wartime mentality" over the campaign in Afghanistan, but instead it possessed a "peacetime culture obsessed with process", he added.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/08/obama-afghanistan-us-foreign-policy
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