Obama's "surge"

Pres. Obama gave a major foreign policy address last Friday in relation to the threat of al Qaeda and the war in Afghanistan. It was a speech that would have been worthy of his predecessor George W. Bush, who Obama's supporters loved to hate.

Without mentioning Iraq, Obama called for an increase of 4,000 US troops in Afghanistan and a ratcheting up of the military and civilian support for the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan as a unified front. If Bush had made a similar spech calling for an increase in the war in this theater he would have been vilified by the anti-war opponents. But, now that the Iraq war is successfully winding down, the US can afford to tackle the growing threat from the Taliban in Afghanistan that is emanating from across the border in Pakistan. When Pres. Musharraf was in charge of Pakistan, the US could depend on him, but now that Pres. Zardari has taken over, he is much less powerful and much more dependent on US support, and so the US must go into the uncontrolled tribal areas and take care of the Islamist threat from there itself. This is now the focus of Obama's foreign policy, to rout out and destroy the Islamist threat from the Pakistan-Afghanistan area.

Here are highlights of the speech as seen by Reuters (compiled by Caren Bohan; edited by Vicki Allen):
"PERILOUS" SITUATION "The situation (in Afghanistan) is increasingly perilous. It's been more than seven years since the Taliban was removed from power, yet war rages on, and insurgents control parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan."

U.S. INTELLIGENCE ON AL QAEDA "Multiple intelligence estimates have warned that al Qaeda is actively planning attacks on the United States homeland from its safe haven in Pakistan."

FOCUS ON PAKISTAN "The future of Afghanistan is inextricably linked to the future of its neighbor, Pakistan ... For the American people, this border region (in Pakistan) has become the most dangerous place in the world."

GOALS IN AFGHANISTAN "We are not in Afghanistan to control that country or to dictate its future. We are in Afghanistan to confront a common enemy that threatens the United States ... We have a clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future."

U.S. WON'T "BLINDLY STAY THE COURSE" "I want to be clear: We cannot turn a blind eye to the corruption that causes Afghans to lose faith in their own leaders. Going forward, we will not blindly stay the course. Instead, we will set clear metrics to measure progress and hold ourselves accountable."

OTHER COUNTRIES HAVE A STAKE "And finally, together with the United Nations, we will forge a new Contact Group for Afghanistan and Pakistan that brings together all who should have a stake in the security of the region -- our NATO allies and other partners, but also the Central Asian states, the Gulf nations and Iran; Russia, India and China."