In this commentary the way Brahma Chellaney blames Obama for his allegedly "failed Afghan peace strategy", reminds me of Benjamin Netanyahu warning Obama incessantly against concluding a nuclear deal with Iran. Chellaney is as paranoid about Pakistan, as much as Netanyahu about Iran. While Chellaney would see Iran in a good light, because India and Iran supported the Northern Alliance against the Taliban during the Afghan civil war, he sees Pakistan as India's biggest security threat just as Netanyahu sees Iran's nuclear programme a threat to Israel.

Is this a "failed" policy by "making peace with the enemy"? The US had paid blood and treasure for fighting the the Taliban in Afghanistan - $1 trillion and casualties! If there's no military solution to ending the conflict, one has to look for a political one: Yet Chellaney says: "It will not work"! On the one hand he critcises Obama's "premature declaration" that the "combat role in Afghanistan was over", on the other he says the US should strengthen the Afghan security forces and find "ways to eliminate the Taliban militia’s sanctuaries in Pakistan". The US is wary of any military action in Pakistan, since the killing of Obama bin Laden in May 2011. In recent months Pakistan had finally got its act together and started to cleanse the tribal areas along the Afghan border of militants. As a result of a Pakistani offensive many fighters have fled into Afghanistan.

Chellaney is outraged that the US does not see the Taliban as a terrorist organisation, and he accuses Washington of breaching the principle of not negotiating with "terrorists". Indeed the administration has sought to portray the Taliban as a moderate force that could be accommodated within Afghanistan’s political system. The US defended the decision to swap Bowe Bergdahl for five Taliban leaders, because the group is not a terrorist organisation but “an armed insurgency.” Then Chellaney lambasts Obama, saying he "allowed" the Taliban to set up an office in Doha, Qatar, "complete with a flag and other diplomatic trappings. The office was open in June 2013 and closed a month later, due to protests from the then Afghan president, Hamid Karzai. It's most unfortunate that Chellaney does not do more research, before he posts his commentary!