The United States needs to prepare itself for “more violence and more casualties in coming months,” in Afghanistan, according to Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who also predicted that “The violence will be worse in 2011 than it was in 2010.”
Speaking to journalists at the State Department’s Foreign Press Centre on Wednesday Admiral Mullen said that while the prognosis for even more bloodshed in Afghanistan may be difficult to accept, the longer-term solution would require the U.S. to support an Afghan political process that would include reconciliation with those Taliban fighters who broke off with al Qaeda, renounced violence and accepted the Afghan constitution.
Emphasising a political solution over a military one to the region’s problems, the Admiral argued that U.S. forces remained committed to beginning a “conditions-based withdrawal of American forces in July of 2011 with a goal endorsed by NATO in the Lisbon Summit of being able to fully transition security responsibilities to Afghan forces by 2014.”
He reaffirmed public statements made by Obama administration officials earlier, suggesting that the U.S.’ military presence would diminish in the country from that point onwards even though the task of ensuring that it was supplanted by sufficient Afghan governance capacity continued to remain “severe.”
The Admiral further underscored the importance of action by Pakistan to shut down terrorist safe havens along the Durand Line, saying, “It is absolutely critical that the safe havens in Pakistan get shut down. We cannot succeed in Afghanistan without that.”
Touching upon recent meetings with his counterpart in Pakistan General Ashfaq Kayani, Admiral Mullen said, “He has evolved his military against this threat. This threat is evolving as well, because it’s not just Haqqani Network anymore, or al Qaeda, or Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, the Afghan Taliban, or Lashkar-e-Taiba, it is all of them working together in ways that two years ago they absolutely did not.”
Pressing the point that “Pakistan is the epicenter of terrorism in the world right now,” he said that neighbouring countries in the region, including Russia, Iran and India, “all have responsibility and we all want to see this resolved as rapidly as possible.”
