Oil Wars

Mideast Peril Growing Concern: Terrorist Havens In 'Failed States'
Instability in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon Raise Risk That U.S. Seeks to
Address
A Province's 'Execution Unit'
By YOCHI J. DREAZEN and PHILIP SHISHKIN

In April, Saudi Arabia disclosed plans for an unusual and hugely
expensive project: a multibillion-dollar electrified fence along its
560-mile border with Iraq.
The move angered U.S. and Iraqi officials, but Saudi officials said
Iraq's growing instability left them little choice. They said they were
concerned about militants infiltrating from Iraq to carry out attacks
aimed at either toppling the ruling family or inciting Saudi Arabia's
restive Shiite minority to seek independence.
Concern about extremism seeping out of Iraq underscores a painful irony
in the five-year-old war against terrorism: The U.S. and its allies now
face the distinct possibility that the same kind of "failed state" that
gave terrorists a haven when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan -- leading
to Sept. 11 -- could be forming again, in more than one place.
Both Iraq and Lebanon are threatening to degenerate into states with
weak central governments where extremists can thrive. Iraq already
appears to serve as a kind of finishing school for young radicals
seeking battlefield experience. In Lebanon, Hezbollah's war with Israel
this summer both destabilized the country and enhanced the reputation
of Hezbollah extremists, who in the past have demonstrated a desire to
extend their reach beyond Lebanon's borders.
To make matters worse, Afghanistan itself now appears to be sliding
backward so much that it could again become an international terror
breeding ground.
Forces from the U.S. and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization are
locked in the bloodiest fighting in Afghanistan since late 2001. U.S.
casualties are running at more than twice last year's rate. U.S.
military commanders speak openly of an "Iraq-ification" of Afghanistan:
Once-rare suicide bombings and roadside bombs have become common, and
both arms and militants flow over mostly undefended borders. Much as in
Iraq, the bulk of the Afghan insurgency is local, but there are signs
al Qaeda-linked foreign fighters are participating.
…………………………………….

This unwelcome picture is forcing changes in America's posture across
the region. Most significantly, the U.S. in midsummer abandoned a plan
that Gen. George Casey, the top American commander in Iraq, had crafted
that would have had the U.S. withdrawing some of its forces beginning
this month.
Instead, the number of American forces in Iraq is increasing. In recent
weeks the U.S. has shifted thousands of troops to Baghdad as part of an
effort to secure the city, which means the U.S. has had to increase the
overall number of troops in Iraq. Last week, the Pentagon said there
were 145,000 troops, or 18,000 more than in late July and the highest
level since the start of the year.
Senior military leaders say their top priority is to ensure that Iraq
doesn't become a failed state. That has caused shifts in how U.S.
forces operate on the ground. In places such as Tal Afar in northern
Iraq and Tarmiyah, a Sunni stronghold northeast of Baghdad, U.S.
military forces are reaching out to insurgent leaders in search of some
sort of compromise that would get them to participate in the political
process and move away from terror groups. As a result, American
officers today are negotiating with Sunni leaders who only a couple of
years earlier had been in jail.
………………………………..

Meanwhile, amid mounting concerns that Lebanon and Iraq are becoming
terrorist havens akin to Afghanistan under the Taliban, Afghanistan
itself appears to sliding back toward disarray.
U.S. and NATO commanders cite three big problems there. The Hamid
Karzai government is deeply unpopular in many rural areas, seen as a
U.S. puppet. Opium-poppy production is skyrocketing, with Afghanistan
now supplying 92% of the world's supply of the heroin ingredient,
according to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime. The biggest threat is
a military one: A resurgent Taliban has triggered the heaviest fighting
since the U.S. toppled the fundamentalist Islamic group's rule in 2001.
Taliban offensives have left more than 1,000 people dead in the past
four months and greatly complicated reconstruction efforts. In just the
past few days, a suicide bomber killed a provincial governor, and then
another suicide bomber attacked at his funeral.
NATO commanders in southern Afghanistan have been surprised by both the
intensity of the Taliban attacks and the tactics used. They say the
Taliban have shifted from ambushes to larger-scale ground assaults, in
which the militants stand and fight rather than melt back into the
countryside. On Thursday, NATO's top commander, Gen. James Jones, asked
the alliance's 26 member states to send more soldiers, warplanes and
helicopters to reinforce the allied forces battling the Taliban