We devote this week’s show to the aftermath of the terrorist attack on the United States and the decade that has followed. We talk to the editor of the Financial Times, Lionel Barber, about his memories of the time and we hear from FT correspondent Matthew Green about life on the Afghan-Pakistan border, in 2011.
Presented by Gideon Rachman with Lionel Barber in the studio in London and Matthew Green in Islamabad – interviewed by Serena Tarling. Produced by LJ Filotrani.
I don’t know whose bright idea it was to schedule peace talks with the Taliban in Munich. But somebody with a sense of history might have avoided that location. Ever since Chamberlain and Daladier signed over the Sudetenland to Hitler there in 1938, the phrase “Munich agreement” has had an unfortunate ring to it.
Audio Obama’s troops, eurozone collapse, India’s economy
In this week’s podcast: President Obama accelerates the timetable for withdrawal from Afghanistan; as the Greek crisis unfolds, we ask whether the eurozone could actually collapse; and, India battles to keep inflation under control.
Presented by Gideon Rachman with James Blitz and Vincent Boland in the studio in London and James Lamont in Delhi.
Produced by LJ Filotrani
President Obama’s announcement of an accelerated US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan is strategically brilliant. It has divided the enemy and significantly increased the chances of victory. Unfortunately, the enemy in this case are the Republicans and it is victory in the US presidential election, rather than Afghanistan, that the president has in mind.
A bit of an embarrassment for Pakistan that Osama bin Laden should finally be found, living within minutes of Pakistan’s equivalent of West Point. Although President Obama was too tactful to say it, this cannot but raise the question of whether bin Laden was enjoying the protection of the top ranks of the Pakistani army. Or to put it another way, the Pakistani top brass is either exceptionally dozy or exceptionally duplicitous. The Americans have long harboured fears that the ISI – Pakistan’s intelligence service – was playing a double game, although more with the Taliban than al-Qaeda. But the top levels of the army were felt to be reasonably straight. Was that a mistake?
Sitting in the departure lounge at Heathrow, waiting for my flight to Washington yesterday, I noticed a familiar figure – David Miliband. It was strange to see a man I’d known as foreign secretary as just a normal traveller – passport in hand, clad in jeans and a white shirt. Once we arrived in Washington, I vaguely expected someone from protocol to sweep Miliband away. But no – he queued up to be finger-printed at immigration with the rest of us.
The announcement that General David Petraeus is going to run the CIA is interesting for lots of reasons. Some political pundits reckon that it is a clever way for President Obama to sideline a potential rivalry for the presidency. It is also a sign of the increasingly militarised nature of the CIA. By tradition the Agency is headed by a civilian. But in recent years, it has taken the lead in running the lethal drone strikes, targetting al-Qaeda and other militants based inside Pakistan. The CIA also has its own paramilitaries and special forces who were very much in evidence in the initial invasion of Afghanistan.
I think the biggest concern about Petraeus must be whether he will be capable of making impartial intelligence judgements about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq – given that he played such a big role in designing the strategies there.
By Daniel Dombey
The heat bore down in Kandahar province and in the relative safety of two military bases the Pentagon chief saw the state of the Afghan war for himself. Dressed in chinos and a baseball cap, Robert Gates was a day tripper with a difference.
His soft, careful speaking style and the way in which he posed for photos with almost every US soldier who crossed his path gave little clue of the defence secretary’s influence in Washington and his beliefs about the conflict itself. But he most definitely matters.
By Daniel Dombey
A ride in a C17 cargo plane from Baghdad to Kabul, consultations with Gen David Petraeus, the commander the US is pinning its hopes on in Afghanistan, and talks with Hamid Karzai the Afghan president who often exasperates his western partners – that’s what made up Robert Gates’ Thursday.
We in the press shared a good part of it. The birds’ eye view from the C17 gave a sense of the inhospitability of Afghanistan, with stunning glimpses of mountains set in desert wilderness.
At a press session at his headquarters Camp Eggers base we saw Petraeus. He sought refuge in generalities when asked specifics about, for example, his plans for the province of Kandahar.
By Daniel Dombey
When the feel-good part of a trip is the visit to Iraq, you know you’re on an interesting journey.
After travelling to Baghdad yesterday to mark the formal end of the US’s military mission in that country, defence secretary Robert Gates came today to Afghanistan, where Washington hopes to engineer a similar handover.
Despite the political deadlock and continuing instability in Iraq, many US officials would give their eye teeth to have a similar set-up in Afghanistan.
| About this blog | About Gideon | Blog guide |
FT.com latest world news
For views and opinions on the European Union from Peter Spiegel, Joshua Chaffin, Alex Barker and Stanley Pignal, follow the FT's Brussels blog here.
The FT's Global Insight column
Older entries