Aligning Alliances - Afghanistan
By Denise Best | Related entries in In The News, The WorldMaintaining strategic (and friendly) alliances in the Middle Eastern region will be crucial as tensions heat up with civil unrest in Iraq, as well as fuel that the Taliban would appear posed and quite willing to apply.
Afghanistan is a strategic partner and this recent surprise presidential visit highlights and provides a reminder of the pressures that are still inherent against the constitutional government model.
Bush held a working lunch with Karzai and other Afghan leaders, attended a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the U.S. embassy in Kabul and spoke to U.S. troops at Bagram Air Base.
”People all over the world are watching the experience here in Afghanistan,” Bush said, praising Karzai as ”a friend and an ally.”
Karzai took power after U.S.-led forces overthrew the Taliban regime. But Taliban insurgents and al-Qaida militants have been increasing attacks within Afghanistan in recent months.
The director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples, told a congressional hearing in Washington on Tuesday that the insurgency was still growing and posed a greater threat to Karzai’s government ”than at any point since late 2001.”
Karzai greeted Bush as ”our great friend, our great supporter, a man who helped us liberate.”
Many have pointed to Afghanistan as the model for Iraq’s transition to a successful constitutional government, but there is still some fragility that remains.
Good to see that the eye is being kept on the ball in demonstrating continued support for Afghanistan - hopefully the intelligence efforts in the region will be just as heightened.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 1st, 2006 and is filed under In The News, The World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
March 1st, 2006 at 1:46 pm
Wow!!! Visiting with other head of states is just the type of thing a real leader does. This visit reminds me of what an involved, diplomatic leader we have. Any remaining doubts that I had about Bush’s involvement were assuaged I clicked on the link and I saw a picture of a President Bush HANDSHAKE with Karzai.
And the visit was a SURPRISE?!?! That is so neat. I like surprises and that seems to make this story even more newsworthy.
By reading about this surprise visit I almost forgot that Bush’s popularity was at an all time low, that everything he touches turns to crap and that he has no domestic agenda.
Thanks for the update, Denise. Scott McClellan and Karl Rove can’t write the news themselves. It takes hardnose journalists like yourself to help them.