Success must come from Afghans, Levin says - Navy News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times

Success must come from Afghans, Levin says

The U.S. cannot depend on Pakistan or NATO to make the new Afghanistan strategy work, a key senator said Tuesday.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said success in Afghanistan appears linked entirely to whether the U.S. can train Afghan security forces to secure their borders and provide internal stability.

That will require more training for Afghan forces, particularly for military leaders, Levin said, noting that a particular problem is a shortage of officers.

Afghanistan “has to defend its own borders” and cannot depend on Pakistan for help, Levin said at a breakfast meeting with defense reporters.

In fact, Levin had a very dim view of whether Pakistan has any interest in helping to control the flow of armed extremists across the border with Afghanistan, and he seemed reluctant to provide any foreign aid to Pakistan to try to encourage such support.

“I don’t think we can buy Pakistan’s support — they have to see this as in their own interest,” he said.

“I don’t have a lot of confidence Pakistan’s government has the will” to take on extremist groups, Levin said.

He also expressed no confidence in Pakistan’s intelligence forces and is concerned that Pakistan’s government has “been trying to buy off extremists.”

Providing aid to Pakistan to try to increase border controls could end up working against the U.S. strategy because it would be viewed by many as an effort to buy support, which would help to fuel internal opposition to Pakistani leaders, Levin said.

NATO allies, who have pledged money and troops for the war effort in Afghanistan, are not helping as much as they could, Levin said.

He called NATO’s performance “pitiful” and said the allies must follow through on promises to provide more money and to relax restrictions on how their troops in Afghanistan can be used.