by Mark Silva
As President Barack Obama weighs the U.S. military's options in Afghanistan, the White House is getting some unsolicited advice from someone who knows the territory:
Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, who oversaw the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan 20 years ago and says today that the U.S. cannot prevail there.
Afghanistan is too fragmented among clans to be controlled militarily, Gorbachev, 78, tells Bloomberg News in an interview in Berlin, after the commemoration of another 20th anniversary signaling the end of a Soviet era, the dismantling of the Berlin Wall.
"I believe that there is no prospect of a military solution," Gorbachev said in Russian through a translator. "What we need is the reconciliation of Afghan society - and they should be preparing the ground for withdrawal rather than additional troops."
Gorbachev allowed that Obama is unlikely to heed his advice.
Gorbachev, who also oversaw the collapse of the Soviet Union, joined German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other world leaders in the German capital to mark the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago. Gorbachev oversaw the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan in 1989 after grappling with an unsuccessful decade-long war there.
Gorbachev allows that he hasn't always seen eye to eye with U.S. leaders. He at first referred to President Ronald Reagan as "a real dinosaur, a man from the past," he said today. "Do you think that Reagan had a better view of me? He said 'Gorbachev is a die-hard Bolshevik.' So that was the beginning."
Comments
When your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Asking generals their advice about Afga is like asking orthopedic surgeons what to do about low back pain.
Chances are they'll recommend surgery, or 40000 more troops.
What does Gen Shinseki have to say?
My bet: he agrees with Gorby.
Posted by: ornery | November 11, 2009 10:51 AM