A Bad Year for Empire
by Jim Lobe
For those who believed that the precise and overwhelming demonstration of U.S. military power in Afghanistan and Iran would “shock and awe” the rest of the world – and particularly Washington’s foes and aspiring rivals – into accepting its benevolent hegemony, 2006 was not a good year.
Not only has Washington become ever more bogged down – at the current rate of nearly three billion dollars and 20 soldiers’ lives a week – in an increasingly fragmented and violent Iraq whose de facto civil war threatens to draw in its neighbors, but a resurgent Taliban has exposed the fragility of what gains have been made in Afghanistan since the U.S.-led military campaign ousted the group five years ago.
In neighboring Pakistan, the U.S.-backed government of President Pervez Musharraf has withdrawn its forces from tribal areas along the Afghan border, effectively handing control of the region to pro-Taliban forces believed to be sheltering al-Qaeda. (more…)