Word: flank
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...disappointing compromise, a constant reminder of Obama's reluctance to fully repudiate Bush's conduct of the war on terrorism. "Gates is an agent of change within his own empire and not within the broader national-security construct. That is the risk Obama ran. He covered his flank but didn't get change," says a Defense policy adviser. White House staffers are no doubt uneasy about their dependency on this old Cold War hawk - as adaptable as he may be - which probably explains why none of them wanted to speak for this profile...
...notable absence from the London summit was that of Iran, Afghanistan's influential neighbor on its western flank. "The approach of this conference is still towards increasing military actions in Afghanistan," an Iranian official told the official Fars news agency. Tehran's decision to stay away, said British Foreign Secretary and conference chairman David Miliband, was "inexplicable...
Long past dreams of Beltway comity, Obama is now in a political tight spot, wedged between sky-high unemployment and lingering concerns over government spending and debt. That choice pits the President's left flank against his moderate supporters. Meanwhile, Republicans have found some traction on the economy, for which Americans traditionally blame, for good or ill, the guy who calls 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue home. As soon as Obama finished speaking, his foes pulled out their knives too. South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint called Obama "delusional" and "out of control...
...Iran experts say Tehran's broad interests in Afghanistan are the same as Washington's. The Islamic Republic doesn't want to see a return to chaos on its eastern flank, which would probably lead to a massive refugee influx. As a Shi'ite state, it would see the return to power of militant Sunni hard-liners as a setback. And Iran, which faces a drug-addiction problem of alarming proportions, shares the U.S. desire to curtail Afghanistan's opium trade. If anything, "Tehran stands to lose much more than Washington if Afghanistan reverts back to an al-Qaeda-infested...
Pakistanis, too, are likely to take the 18-month timeline as a signal that they should continue to hedge their bets and support the Afghan Taliban in the tribal areas along the border in order to foil a much feared expansion of Indian influence on their northwestern flank. At the moment U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan believe they can continue the battle despite Pakistan's tolerance of the Afghan Taliban leadership within its borders. Should Pakistani policy move toward active aid and support, however, the task of defeating the Afghan insurgency would become impossibly difficult. (See Europe's response...