Bombshell from London

The London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), is the world's leading think tank for military affairs. It represents the top echelon of defense experts, retired officers and senior military men, spanning the globe from the United States and Britain to China, Russia and India. I've been an IISS member for over 20 years. IISS's reports are always authoritative but usually cautious and diplomatic, sometimes dull. However, two weeks ago the IISS issued an explosive report on Afghanistan that is shaking Washington and its NATO allies. The report, presided over by the former deputy director of Britain's foreign intelligence agency, MI-6, says the threat from al-Qaida and Taliban has been "exaggerated" by the western powers. The US-led mission in Afghanistan has "ballooned" out of all proportion from its original aim of disrupting and defeating al-Qaida. The US-led war in Afghanistan, says IISS, using uncharacteristically blunt language, is "a long-drawn-out disaster". Just recently, CIA chief Leon Panetta admitted there were no more than 50 members of Al Qaida in Afghanistan. Yet US President Barack Obama has tripled the number of US soldiers there to 120,000 to fight Al Qaida. The IISS report goes on to acknowledge the presence of western troops in Afghanistan is actually fueling national resistance. I saw the same phenomena during the 1980's Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Interestingly, the portion of the report overseen by the former MI-6 Secret Intelligence Service deputy chief, Nigel Inskster, finds little Al Qaida threat elsewhere, notably in Somalia and Yemen. Yet Washington is beefing up its attacks on both turbulent nations. The IISS's findings are a direct challenge to Obama, Britain's new prime minister, David Cameron, and other US allies with troops in Afghanistan. This report undermines their rational used to sustain the increasingly unpopular conflict. It will certainly convince skeptics that the real reason for occupation of Afghanistan has to do with oil, excluding China from the region, and keeping watch on nuclear-armed Pakistan.