Shifting priorities
What does a shift in focus from Iraq to Afghanistan mean for the fight against the Taliban?
What chance is there that the US troops can defeat the Taliban? It is a challenging question for the Obama administration which is looking to send another thirty thousand soldiers to a frontier that has been described as another Vietnam.
To complicate things the Kirgizstan government has just confirmed it will close a key US base that was crucial as a supply route for US troops operating in Afghanistan.
Nearly six hundred US lives have already been lost in Afghanistan and the situation is growing more violent.
We look at the US shifting priorities from Iraq to Afghanistan under Obama’s new administration and ask whether or not the US has lost its way in Afghanistan. We will also look at what the UN could do to bring greater stability to both countries.
Zalmay Khalilizad, former US ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq and the UN, joins Riz Khan to discuss former president Bush’s policies toward Iraq and Afghanistan versus what Obama has laid out.
This episode of the Riz Khan show aired from Monday, February 9, 2009.