Where is Obama's drawdown leading to for Afghanistan?

Could a feeling of strategic despair pervading the White House mean President Obama's drawdown plan could turn into an unseemly rout of US and other NATO-ISAF forces?

New York Times: U.S. Considers Faster Pullout in Afghanistan

President Obama, frustrated in his dealings with President Karzai, is considering speeding up troop withdrawals from Afghanistan and even leaving no American troops after 2014

WASHINGTON —

Mr. Obama is committed to ending America’s military involvement in Afghanistan by the end of 2014, and Obama administration officials have been negotiating with Afghan officials about leaving a small “residual force” behind. But his relationship with Mr. Karzai has been slowly unraveling, and reached a new low after an effort last month by the United States to begin peace talks with the Taliban in Qatar.

Mr. Karzai promptly repudiated the talks and ended negotiations with the United States over the long-term security deal that is needed to keep American forces in Afghanistan after 2014.

A videoconference between Mr. Obama and Mr. Karzai designed to defuse the tensions ended badly, according to both American and Afghan officials with knowledge of it. Mr. Karzai, according to those sources, accused the United States of trying to negotiate a separate peace with both the Taliban and their backers in Pakistan, leaving Afghanistan’s fragile government exposed to its enemies.
It looks to me like President Obama is getting some "Dark Counsel" as regards pulling out from Afghanistan.

First to explain the phrase "Dark Counsel". Have you seen Lord of the Rings? Remember King Theoden and his adviser, Grima Wormtongue, who told him he was weak, could not fight and hope to win, turned out Grima was secretly an agent for Saruman?



OK remember now? That's "dark counsel".

So who is giving Obama, "dark counsel", who is his Grima Wormtongue?

Well maybe a lady called Robin Raphel, a former agent for Pakistan, a Washington Lobbyist in the pay of the Pakisan state. Obama has taken her on into her team, in charge of non-military aid to Pakistan, that's billions of dollars worth.



Quote Originally Posted by Wikipedia
Wikipedia: Robin Raphel
Robin Lynn Raphel (born 1947) is a career diplomat who is currently the coordinator for non-military assistance to Pakistan with the rank of ambassador.

She was appointed by President Clinton as first Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, a newly created position, where her tenure was highly controversial. Regularly throughout her career, Raphel was described as being "warm" to totalitarian and military regimes, such as the the military governments in Pakistan, and conversely "cool" towards human rights considerations.

Her tenure as Assistant Secretary for Near East and South Asian Affairs was marked by perceived hostility towards India and Afghanistan, and "warmth" towards Pakistan and the Taliban, as was extensively documented by the media.

Famously, Raphel was hostile towards the Northern Alliance including its leader Ahmed Shah Massoud who she personally pressured to yield to the Taliban.

Raphel openly promoted the complete Taliban takeover of all of Afghanistan, until the events of 9/11. Some scholars believe that her perceived "favoritism" towards Pakistan and the Taliban indirectly, if peripherally, contributed to causing 9/11.

One commonly-cited factor was her aggressive promotion of Unocal's proposal for the Afghanistan Oil Pipeline, which would have required the defeat of the Northern Alliance.

As to U.S. relations with India, the largest and most prosperous state in the region, her tenure was marked as the the "darkest chapter since the Indo-Pakistan War of 1971".

Upon her dismissal from the Assistant Secretary position by President Clinton and her transfer to the backwater post of Ambassador to Tunisia, U.S. relations with India were reported to have "improved overnight".

She also served as a member of the Iraq Reconstruction Team during the Bush administration. She retired from the state department in 2005 after 30 years of service.

She soon became a lobbyist for Pakistan at Cassidy & Associates, a Washington lobbying form that was employed by the Government of Pakistan at an annual retainer of $1.2 million.

Raphel has been the senior Vice President at the National Defense University in Washington.

The Obama Administration appointed Robin Raphel as a member of the team of the late Richard Holbrooke, the Special Representative to the Af-Pak region.
Raphel is the enemy within. I would not let this woman within a mile of the White House, but there again, I'm not King Theoden, I mean, President Obama.

YouTube: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) - Gandalf Releases Theoden