The Islamic Arab kings setting up to not be plucked up after foreign Troops Vacate!
After Foreign Troops Withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan a Middle East War Begins,
Troop withdrawal was the major parameter among the factors I considered in 2006,
To make a prediction Middle East war would begin at a time twixt 2010 & 2015,
With the most likely time for an initial attack to occur being between 2013 to 2015!
The Two Excerpts from BBC and DEBKAfile on June 9th and 18th are worth Reading!
June 19, 2011
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
Daniel 7:24,25 – And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that
shall arise: and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first,
and he shall subdue three kings. [25] And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.
Begin Excerpt 1 -from BBC News
Mark Urban, Diplomatic and Defense Editor
Newsnight June 9, 2011
US could move faster on Afghanistan troop withdrawals
Robert Gates, the US Defence Secretary, today told fellow Nato ministers meeting in Brussels that there should be, “no rush for the exits” as the alliance draws down its forces in Afghanistan.
He was responding to concerns that Washington’s imminent announcement of troop reduction plans could trigger a wave of pull outs.
Mr Gates has just returned from a final trip to Afghanistan (he is expected to step down from his job next month) and will soon put forward the official Pentagon view about how quickly and deeply the US can cut its force of nearly 94,000.
The issue h as c
aused a lively debate in the White House, but it appears that the Obama Administration will move faster rather than slower when it announces the reductions set to start in July.
Some have characterised the current battle as one between generals and politicians. But it is more accurate to say it has played out between those who believe in a slow drawdown – notably Mr Gates and General David Petraeus, commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan – and those who argue that it should be speeded up.
The Afghan surge of more than 30,000 troops was announced in December 2009, following requests for more troops from the then commander General Stan McChrystal.
Calculations about how long this additional force should stay remained classified in his report, though I can reveal that Gen McChrystal envisaged a fast drawdown: 40,000 troops during the first year of the process.
Gen Petraeus on the other hand has always been much more circumspect about promising a rapid exit, and was last year heard to describe the July 2011 milestone, as ‘an aspiration’ rather than a firm target.
As his president’s desire to start the process on time has hardened, Gen Petraeus conceded that something would have to begin this summer, and that it must involve significant units rather than just token ones.
Even last November, at Nato’s summit in Lisbon, the Petraeus/Gates view held sway.
The alliance shied away from specific proposals and insisted that the pull out would be ‘conditions based’ – in other words that it could be slowed down if there were reverses in the field.
Those who have followed this thinking were expecting the July announcement to start the withdrawal of units numbering 5-6,000. Steps beyond that would have followed the Lisbon formulation of being based upon progress on the ground.
Thinking in the White House has changed though. The evidence so far of the ‘fighting season’ that began in April is that Nato casualties will not be any lower this summer than last – despite the claims by many military leaders to have taken the initiative from the Taliban.
This has empowered sceptics in Washington (and indeed London) who believe that the military has had its chance, as has the government of President Hamid Karzai, and that it is now time to start cutting the cost of the whole venture. The killing of Osama bin Laden has boosted the ‘faster rather than slower’ lobby that includes Vice President Joe Biden.
It is clear that the strongest voices in favour of the cautious approach were those of Mr Gates and Gen Petraeus.
President Obama’s recent re-shuffle of national security leaders will though move CIA director Leon Panetta to run the Pentagon, and put Gen Petraeus in his stead, running the espionage agency in Langley. Thus at one stroke the two most cautious figures in Afghan strategy will have been removed from the drawdown equation.
Barring serious military reverses this summer, the scene is set for deep cuts in US forces over the next year.
And if field commanders grumble, those who want out will always be able to say that they are only following the planning originally set out by Gen McChrystal.
Begin Excerpt from DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis
Karzai slams US, links hands with Pakistan, Saudi Arabia
DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis
June 18, 2011, 5:59 PM (GMT+02:00)
Afghan President Hamid Karzai, America and NATO’s key ally in the war on the Taliban and al Qaeda, turned furiously on the United States in a public outburst Saturday, June 18. He accused Washington of carrying on talks with the Taliban behind Kabul’s backs and contaminating the Afghan environment with chemical pollutants used in NATO war operations.
Karzai becomes the third head of a Muslim country, after Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, to take strong exception to US foreign policy and distance himself from the Obama administration.
Addressing an international conference of young Afghans Saturday, June 18, Karzai said: “You remember a few years ago I was saying thank you to the foreigners for their help, every minute we were thanking them. Now I have stopped saying that, except when Spanta forced me to say thank you.” (He was referring to Rangiin Spanti his national security adviser.)
As to the Americans, Karzai charged bitterly, “They’re here for their own purposes, for their own goals and they’re using our soil for that. Every time when their planes fly it makes smoke, when they drop bombs they have chemical materials in them, our people get killed but our environment is damaged… our animals, our people… They should not think we are uneducated and do not know anything.”
DEBKAfile’s sources report that the Afghan president’s diatribe was prompted by two developments.
1. He suspects that the United States is secretly bypassing US-Afghan-Pakistan talks with the Taliban which have been ongoing quietly for some months and opened up a direct channel to the Taliban irrespective of the interests of Kabul and Islamabad.
Karzai brought his suspicions out in the open by saying: “Peace talks are going on with the Taliban.
The foreign military and especially the United States itself is going ahead with these negotiations.” At the same time, he said: “The peace negotiations between the Afghan government and Taliban movement are not yet based on a certain agenda or physical [meetings]. Contacts have been established.”
The implication in his words was that the Americans have already given substantially more ground to the Taliban than Kabul was willing to venture. For instance, Friday, June 17, the UN Security Council unanimously agreed to rephrase previous resolutions defining al Qaeda and Taliban as terrorist organizations subject to sanctions by omitting reference to the Taliban.
DEBKAfile reports the conviction in Kabul and Islamabad that, less than two months after the death of Osama bin Laden, the Americans are in a hurry to draw their troops out of Afghanistan – even at the price of weakening Afghan and Pakistan bargaining positions against the insurgents.
Both have found a sympa thetic ear for
their gripes against the Obama administration in Riyadh. Afghanistan and Pakistan have begun reorienting their polices on a relationship with Saudi Arabia which has set up with the Gulf emirates a new grouping to launch a separate external and security policy in opposition to Washington’s approach to the Muslim nations and the revolts against Arab rulers.
Only a week ago, at the height of the Islamabad-Washington crisis which flared in the wake of the US raid that killed Osama bin Laden, Karzai visited Islamabad for two days (June 10-11) of long private talks with Pakistan’s leaders.
Some informed sources say the Afghan president also saw senior Saudi officials there on the quiet.
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