Not Another Iraq, Obama!

Actually, no one is ignorant of American Preisdent-elect Barak Obama’s intentions to withdraw from Iraq and send 20,000 of his troops to Afghanistan, as if the situation in the latter solely needed military investment. But since the Taliban is setting fire to more than 200 trucks that are carrying supplies and ammunition to 60,000 of NATO’s forces stationed in different parts of Afghanistan, it shows how tough the mission of the new American president will be and his faulty planning of priorities.

As a start, the Taliban, backed by the al Bashton tribe (In the border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan and counting 40 million people, (a country awaiting independence!), managed to control nearly 70% of the Afghani lands and is expected to take over the Afghani capital of Kabul by the coming Spring as it starts mobilizing its fighters for the big event.

But how can it be that strong? The answer comes for the following reasons:

-First: its leadership, symbolized by Mullah Mohammed Omar, is strongly aesthetic. Uninterested in media interviews, he said in an announcement on the occasion of the Greater Bairam that he refuses mediation and compromises as long as his country is still suffering under occupation which can be ended only by resistance, according to him.

-Second: its arm in Pakistan, with Baaitu Allah Mahsud taking the helm. The group there encompasses more than four million fighters, 80,000 of whom are ready for martyrdom in order to force out the American's.

-Third: the close alliance between the Taliban and the al Qaeda network, when it made use of the latter’s informational and military experience in Iraq. In 2008, this led to a step up of the number of NATO troops killed by martyr attacks and roadside bombs to 800.

-Fourth: the American air strikes, which target fighters of the two aforementioned groups inside the Pakistani boundaries and in the tribes’ land, claimed innocent civilians, something that enrages tribes towards the American existence and lends a hand to the Taliban's recruiting more volunteers.

-Fifth: the deteriorating situation in Pakistan, due to the corrupt regime -- whose leader, Asif Ali Zardari, spent 13 years in jail -- is accused of financial corruption. This drove the majority of Pakistanis to rally behind al Qaeda and the Taliban.

-Sixth: junior officers of Pakistani military intelligence secretly support the Taliban, in spite of their leadership’s adherence to the current attitudes towards the American War on Terrorism.

-Seventh: the weak and depraved central government of Kabul. Some American newspapers wrote about the involvement of the Afghani president’s brother in narcotics trafficking. Now, many of the warlords, toppled previously by the Taliban, and known to be bandits and drug dealers, have now assumed sublime positions in either the Parliament or in the government.

Some may argue that the plans adopted in Iraq by General David H. Petraeus, now commander of U.S. Central Command, which involved increasing the number of troops, and founding the Awakening movement in Iraq to reduce violence, weakened al Qaeda and drove it away from most of the Sunni areas. However, there is no comparison between Iraq and Afghanistan for many reasons, primarily relating to the demographics, geography and history of the countries:

1-The Afghani nature is rugged and mountainous. The climate is severe in winter, while Iraq’s nature is plain and its climate moderate.

2-Afghanistan acts as Asia’s navel and is surrounded by seven countries all willing to cooperate with the resistance by opening boundaries to smuggle in fighters and arms. On the other hand, Iraq's neighbors, like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, Iran and Turkey, are all allies of America. The sole exception, Syria, was recently brought under joint Arab and American pressures to stop helping volunteers join the Iraqi resistance and to open its embassy in Baghdad.

3-The Taliban, and likewise the majority of the Afghani people, are fundamental Islamists, followers of the Hanafi disciple, that has an inclination towards Wahhabi thinking. While the Islamic resistance, and al Qaeda in particular, governed the country, secular regimes have crushed the Islamic movement for the last hundred years, going to the extent of imprisonment and execution.

4-It would be difficult to form the Awakening councils in Afghanistan because the Afghani people, and particularly al Bashton tribes, never hand over refugees, be it Arab resistance or Talibani fighter, to occupation forces, holding to sublime Islamic values. That is why the attempts to arrest and even kill Osama Bin Laden, Mullah Omar, or Dr. Ayman Al Zawahry, were doomed to failure. And even before this, Mullah Omar preferred losing his authority rather than enabling the Americans to capture his guest, the al Qaeda leader. However, the Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish leaders of the “New Iraq” are licking the boots of their invaders to hold a position in the new government.

The long and the short of it is that Obama’s next days in Afghanistan will be tough. This country has caused great losses to its assailants, and drove them away, crowned with shame and defeat; a lesson the Americans should learn from the English and the Soviets.

Now, Hamid Karzai, the Afghani president and the “pet” of the West and America, is paying court to Taliban and is thinking of giving up his puppet position as president to go back into exile!

The only thing Afghanistan and Iraq have in common -- not to mention the American occupation -- is the governors’ flight after the withdrawal of their sponsor, this time being America. And whoever visits London nowadays will find most of Iraq’s recent governors preparing a life there.