By NNN-APP,
Washington : The Obama administration’s upcoming strategy for Afghanistan must focus on bringing a sense of solace to the suffering people in the region, a prominent expert South Asian affairs said. “There has to be a very serious review of the strategy,” Mowahid Hussain Shah told an American TV channel.
Shah felt that President Barack Obama, who has been weighing in on various options for an effective way forward, would authorize several thousand additional U.S. troops for the conflict-torn Afghanistan as “part of a broader counterinsurgency effort.”
“What is required now is a policy, which combines force against murderers and a policy which also brings a sense of solace to the people through greater law and order, through better institutions and employment opportunities.”
“The people living there are actually the biggest victims of violence and they want peace basically,” Shah, who is a well-known expert on the Middle East, told Dr James Zogby in program Viewpoint, shown on American TV channels.
He said the U.S. should put together its force as a symbol of its commitment towards safety and security of the people of Afghanistan.
Shah discussed the situation in Afghanistan as Obama and his national security advisers explored options for an effective way forward in Afghanistan, where the top U.S. commander Gen Stanley McChrystal has proposed a surge of as much as 40,000 additional American troops.
Speaking on the regional plane, Shah cautioned against attempts to allow India gain a greater clout in the Afghan affairs.
“Pakistan does not want to be sandwiched between a hostile India and a pro-Delhi Afghanistan.”
The United States, he argued, must take Pakistan along as its ally and friend since it cannot succeed without the Pakistani help.
In this context, Shah pointed out that Washington has no reliable partner in Afghanistan, whose institutions and security forces are “dysfunctional and corrupt.”
The Pakistani army, on the other hand, is fighting militants in a tough mountainous terrain where no superpower has dared to enter.
In the global perspective, the expert said festering occupation situation in (Indian held) Kashmir and the unresolved Palestinian dispute have given rise to extremism.
The policy analyst said local issues have been internationalized because of global tensions.
For example, he said, before 2001 there was not a single instance of suicide bombing in Pakistan or Afghanistan.
Pakistan, he said, is suffering from the blowback effect of the fight against Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.
Mowahid Shah said the mujahideen were brought together from around the world to fight Soviet forces and were funded and assisted by the U.S. and its allies from the Pakistani side “ without regard to consequences” for the region.