By Tan Copsey
A little update from the front. You’ll like this really. Apparently retiring Senate Majority leader, Bill Frist, has hit upon a brilliant idea to solve the escalating crisis in Afghanistan. The idea is to bring the Taliban back into the democratic fold. Vision eh?
The cynics amongst us might dare to point out one or two ever so mild problems. Perhaps the fact that the Taliban are, well, not really the biggest fans of democracy, or for that matter the rest of the Afghani government. They may even have been fighting a little war with these people for, well, one or two years. The small matter of one or two ideological similarities between the Taliban and oh you know, that other group, al-something or other, seem to have slipped Frist’s mind for the moment. Why exactly did everyone fight a war with them again? Something to do with a blown up Buddha statue was it? These are obviously differences that can be put aside.
Alright awful jokes aside, you will be wondering what exactly is going on. This is not necessarily a statement that lends itself to immediate analysis, but some hypotheses can be made. First, Frist may be seeking to distance himself from Bush as he attempts to define himself as an individual with fresh thinking on foreign policy. After all he needs to make use of the limelight now, before going under the media radar for a period, prior to what now seems an inevitable run at the Presidency in 2008. Frist has been seen to be rather close to the President of late and it might pay to create a little distance. Secondly it is possible that this signals a change in direction from the Bush administration as it seeks a way of withdrawing from Afghanistan. (Although this seems unlikely right?). Finally it is possible that faced with retirement, Frist has in fact just lost it, you never know.
There are a number of upsides to this, mainly for Congressional Democrats, who now have a means of further differentiating themselves from Republicans on issues of Security. Although it must be noted that there are virtually none for actual Afghani’s who continue to remain insignificant pawns, used as part of other nation’s internal machinations.
