A Pakistani soldier pictured during operations against militants in June.

Thomas L. Friedman
The New York Times

It is crunch time on Afghanistan, so here’s my vote: We need to be thinking about how to reduce our footprint and our goals there in a responsible way, not dig in deeper. We simply do not have the Afghan partners, the NATO allies, the domestic support, the financial resources or the national interests to justify an enlarged and prolonged nation-building effort in Afghanistan.

I base this conclusion on three principles. First, when I think back on all the moments of progress in that part of the world — all the times when a key player in the Middle East actually did something that put a smile on my face — all of them have one thing in common: America had nothing to do with it.

America helped build out what they started, but the breakthrough didn’t start with us. We can fan the flames, but the parties themselves have to light the fires of moderation. And whenever we try to do it for them, whenever we want it more than they do, we fail and they languish.

The Camp David peace treaty was not initiated by Jimmy Carter. Rather, the Egyptian president, Anwar Sadat, went to Jerusalem in 1977 after Israel’s Moshe Dayan held secret talks in Morocco with Sadat aide Hassan Tuhami. Both countries decided that they wanted a separate peace — outside of the Geneva comprehensive framework pushed by Mr. Carter.

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Ex-Homeland Security Chief Tom Ridge says he was pushed to raise the terror alert before the 2004 election.

CNN

Former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge says he successfully countered an effort by senior Bush administration officials to raise the nation's terror alert level in the days before the 2004 presidential vote.

"An election-eve drama was being played out at the highest levels of our government" after Osama bin Laden released a pre-election message critical of President George W. Bush, writes Ridge in his new book, "The Test of Our Times."

Attorney General John Ashcroft and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld strongly advocated raising the security threat level to "orange," even though Ridge believed a threatening message "should not be the sole reason to elevate the threat level."

The former Pennsylvania governor also writes that he saw no reason for the move, which he now calls a bad idea, because additional security precautions had already been taken in advance of the election.

"We certainly didn't believe the tape alone warranted action, and we weren't seeing any additional intelligence that justified it. In fact, we were incredulous," Ridge said of the push. "... I wondered, 'Is this about security or politics?' "

The idea that an attack might take place had been discussed, he says. "But at this point there was nothing to indicate a specific threat and no reason to cause undue public alarm. ... It also seemed possible to me and to others around the table that something could be afoot other than simple concern about the country's safety."

In the end, the threat level was not raised.

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Anderson Cooper discusses Osama Bin Laden's new tape calling for a jihad against Israel with CNN National Security Analyst Peter Bergen and former CIA officer Gary Berntsen.

Osama bin Laden remains on the run despite a $25 million reward for his capture.

Peter Bergen
CNN National Security Analyst

The new 22-minute tape posted Wednesday on a radical Islamist Web site is the first one from Osama bin Laden in nine months. On it, the al Qaeda leader urges Muslims to wage jihad against Israel because of its offensive in Gaza.

U.S. counter-terrorism officials had been expecting that bin Laden would release a tape before the 2008 presidential election just as he had done four years earlier.

On October 29, 2004, he released a videotaped address to the American people in which he said that it was irrelevant whether Americans elected Sen. John Kerry or George W. Bush as president. The key issue, as far as he was concerned, was that the United States needed to change its policies in the Muslim world.

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Osama bin Laden, in an undated photo, apparently taped a message calling for jihad against Israel.

Peter Bergen
CNN National Security Analyst

Osama bin Laden's release of an audio message denouncing Israel's military offensive in Gaza signals the al Qaeda leader's priorities, CNN national security analyst Peter Bergen says.

On the tape, which became public Wednesday, bin Laden calls for jihad, or holy war, against Israel in response to its military campaign aimed at stopping Hamas rocket attacks.

It's unknown when the tape was made because the time lag between recording a bin Laden message and releasing it is usually about two weeks, said Bergen, a fellow at the New America Foundation in Washington and author of "The Osama bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of al Qaeda's Leader."

Bergen answered questions about the latest message from bin Laden.

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Editor's Note: Tune in to hear more from CNN National Security Analyst Peter Bergen on AC360° tonight at
10pm ET.

CNN National Security Analyst Peter Bergen analyzes the relevance and timing of the new Osama bin Laden tape.

U.S. Forces in Afghanistan.

Joe Klein
Time

"Things have gotten a bit hairy," admitted British Lieut. Colonel Graeme Armour as we sat in a dusty, bunkered NATO fortress just outside the city of Lashkar Gah in Helmand province, a deadly piece of turf along Afghanistan's southern border with Pakistan.

A day earlier, two Danish soldiers had been killed and two Brits seriously wounded by roadside bombs. The casualties were coming almost daily now.

And then there were the daily frustrations of Armour's job: training Afghan police officers. Almost all the recruits were illiterate. "They've had no experience at learning," Armour said. "You sit them in a room and try to teach them about police procedures — they start gabbing and knocking about. You talk to them about the rights of women, and they just laugh."

A week earlier, five Afghan police officers trained by Armour were murdered in their beds while defending a nearby checkpoint — possibly by other police officers. Their weapons and ammunition were stolen. "We're not sure of the motivation," Armour said. "They may have gone to join the Taliban or sold the guns in the market."

The war in Afghanistan — the war that President-elect Barack Obama pledged to fight and win — has become an aimless absurdity. It began with a specific target.

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Octavia Nasr
CNN Arab Affairs Editor

In the Arab world, media headlines, editorials and commentaries continue to be very supportive of the U.S. for electing Barack Obama as president. Even the most conservative media, those with known anti-western slant, are sounding positive and offering congratulations.

At the London-based pro-Palestinian newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi, an editorial reads, “It is too soon to judge Barack Obama’s ability to handle the economic crisis and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but he has already defeated America’s two most powerful institutions, the Clintons and the conservative right wing… He therefore might be able to handle these explosive dossiers if granted the opportunity…” The editorial continued, “Barack Obama will enter history with his competence, abilities, patience and wisdom… We therefore congratulate him for this great success and congratulate the American people for having chosen change.”

In Saudi Arabia’s pro-government Okaz newspaper, Khalaf al-Harbi wrote, “We cannot hide our admiration for the invigorating American spirit that is not blinded by might or corrupted by supremacy. The United States proves one more time that it is always capable of reinventing itself and staying ahead of other countries that cannot show the same degree of dedication and loyalty to their professed principles.”

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Peter Bergen
CNN National Security Analyst

One person who was supposed to weigh in on the American presidential election is someone we have yet to hear from: Osama bin Laden.

Four years ago the al Qaeda leader appeared in a well-lit videotape addressing himself directly to the American people five days before they voted in the contest between Sen. John Kerry and George Bush. Bin Laden said then that whoever won the election was immaterial as far as al Qaeda was concerned and that instead Americans needed to change their country’s foreign policies in the Muslim world, or face the consequences.

US intelligence officials tracking al Qaeda have been expecting a similar message from the al Qaeda leader in the run-up to this presidential election. Yet, so far, bin Laden has not appeared.
There could be several reasons for this. First, the bin Laden tape might still be in the pipeline and will surface in coming weeks having wended its long way via a chain of couriers from his hideout on the Afghan-Pakistan border to be uploaded to a jihadist website or delivered to an Arab TV station.

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