America’s defeat to destabilise Pakistan: US senators

WASHINGTON: Three powerful US senators — John McCainJohn McCain, Joe LiebermanJoe Lieberman and Lindsey GrahamLindsey Graham — warned on Tuesday that an American defeat in Afghanistan would further destabilise Pakistan.

In a joint statement issued by their offices, they urged the Obama administration to use ‘decisive force’ to defeat the extremists operating in the Afghan-Pakistan region.

‘The ramifications of an American defeat in Afghanistan would not only be a devastating setback for our nation in what is now the central front in the global war on terror, but would inevitably further destabilise neighbouring, nuclear Pakistan,’ they argued.

Those who advocate a US withdrawal from Afghanistan were wrong in making a similar demand in Iraq, and they are now wrong about Afghanistan, the senators said.

‘We are confident that not only is it winnable, but that we have no choice. We must prevail in Afghanistan.’

Backing the current US strategy and an expected demand by the new US commander, Gen Stanley McChrystal, for more troops, the senators said the US team in Afghanistan ‘must also have the resources it needs to succeed —including a significant increase in US forces’.

They added: ‘More troops will not guarantee success in Afghanistan, but a failure to send them is a guarantee of failure. As we saw in Iraq, numbers matter in counter-insurgency.’

Their statement follows a series of opinion polls showing that growing numbers of Americans are starting to doubt whether the US should have troops in Afghanistan and whether the war there is even winnable.

Although two of these senators — Messrs Graham and McCain — are Republicans, and the third — Mr Lieberman — is an Independent Democrat; in their statement they supported several key points of the administration’s new Afghan strategy.

Elucidating his new strategy, President Barack ObamaBarack Obama has often pointed out that America did not choose to fight in Afghanistan; the war was forced on it. The president also says that the US must win this war as the alternative will have disastrous consequences not just for America but also for the rest of the world.

Supporting the US president on these key points, the three senators noted: ‘We went to war there because the 9/11 attacks were a direct consequence of the safe haven given to Al Qaeda in that country under the Taliban. We remain at war because a resurgent Taliban, still allied with Al Qaeda, is trying to restore its brutal regime and re-establish that country as a terrorist safe haven.’

The three senators argued that it remained ‘a clear, vital national interest of the United States’ to prevent the extremists from retaking Afghanistan.

The senators, however, acknowledged that the American people were getting tired of this war. But they argued that the problems the US was now facing in Afghanistan were not because the Taliban were invincible or popular.

‘Rather, our problems result from what was, for years, a mismanaged and under-resourced war,’ they said. ‘Our mistakes are infuriating, but they are also reversible.