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Georgia’s role as U.S. coalition partner has honed its army, bolstered NATO hopes - The Washington Post

TBILISI, Georgia — When the United States pulled together international coalitions to support its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, few allies volunteered as quickly and enthusiastically as this small former Soviet state.

As <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-paratroopers-return-to-afghanistan-to-deal-a-few-final-blows-against-the-taliban/2014/07/28/7a92dbf8-07ae-11e4-8a6a-19355c7e870a_story.html" title="www.washingtonpost.com">the Afghan war comes to a close</a> after 13 years, the makeup of the multinational force has grown as anemic as the conflict has become unpopular. Yet Georgia, driven by an incessant quest to join NATO, is among the stragglers sticking it out until the end — and playing and outsize role.

The coalition of the willing, born during a moment when the fear of terrorist attacks gripped Western capitals, has become to a large extent a coalition of aspirants. For several small, militarily weak nations, the past decade of war has offered transformational opportunities by boosting their fighting prowess, providing access to world leaders and altering regional politics.

Georgia, which had 20 percent of its territory occupied by Russia in 2008, was among those motivated by a calculation that years of serving in combat zones alongside U.S. troops would earn it a spot in the alliance that binds members to come to each other’s defense.

While some troop contributors to the Afghan war have been welcomed to NATO or put on track to join the alliance, Georgia remains locked out — a source of particular consternation here at a time when Russia has just annexed part of <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/rebel-held-ukraine-city-hit-by-heavy-rocket-fire/2014/08/13/e2a8fcda-22cb-11e4-8b10-7db129976abb_story.html" title="www.washingtonpost.com">Ukraine</a> and continues to destabilize eastern Ukraine, according to alliance officials. Georgian officials are also upset that Washington has not processed requests for military equipment they want to buy in an effort to be better prepared should Georgia go to war with Russia again.

“Clearly, there’s a sense of disappointment in general that we’ve performed and contributed more than some NATO members,” Georgian Defense Minister Irakli Alasania said in a recent interview. “We don’t have any security guarantees, no security blankets. The only force we can count on is ourselves.”

Georgia’s 805-strong force in Afghanistan is roughly equal to the collective contributions of NATO members Spain (247), France (177), Denmark (165), Belgium (147), Portugal (66) and Greece (10). The only country that has more troops per capita is the minuscule and impoverished Pacific island of Tonga, which keeps some 55 soldiers in Afghanistan.

Unlike most other contingents in the Afghan coalition, Georgia has not demanded caveats to shield its soldiers from the riskiest assignments or spare them from fighting. It has made only two requests: to be trained by U.S. Marines and to be given chief responsibility for sectors of the Afghan battle space.

“They’ve distinguished themselves in terms of their valor,” said Evelyn N. Farkas, a deputy assistant secretary of defense whose regional portfolio includes Georgia. “They have suffered the way we have in terms of casualties.”

Georgian officials might sound bitter when speaking about the elusive NATO membership, which they blame primarily on opposition from Germany and France, strong commercial partners of Moscow. But they are not altogether ungrateful. The Afghan war provided the nation of 4.5 million with an opportunity to turn a ragtag, demoralized and poorly led military into a professional and increasingly capable fighting force.

With support and guidance from the U.S. military, Georgia recently built a state-of-the-art military academy with a culture and curriculum modeled after the vaunted U.S. Army school in West Point, N.Y. U.S. Marines run a training program on the outskirts of Tbilisi, the capital, for Georgian battalions preparing to deploy to Afghanistan.

On a recent afternoon, Capt. Christopher Machi, a Marine working with a Georgian battalion in southern Afghanistan, marveled at how far his trainees have come.

“Their small-tactics abilities are quite good,” he said. “They’re definitely a warrior culture, and they’ve been in heavy combat here during the last few years.”

Georgian soldiers deployed to Afghanistan are far from circumspect when discussing their role in backing their country’s political aspirations. Speaking at a base in Zabul province, where his unit was tasked with providing security for an American infantry battalion, 1st Lt. Gocha Giorgadze said he and his comrades understand what their sacrifice is about.

“During the war with Russia we saw a series of weaknesses in our army, and we have sought to improve those problems,” Giorgadze said, referring to the 2008 conflict during which Russian forces quickly overwhelmed the Georgian military. “Practice has shown us that everything is possible.”

Realizing that the prospect of NATO membership remains distant, Alasania, the defense minister, has been pressing Washington for help in boosting his country’s air defense systems and anti-armor capabilities. Like many Georgians, he speaks about a new conflict with Russia as a near-certainty.

“We’re now putting together capabilities that would cost Russia heavy losses” should a new confrontation materialize, Alasania said. “We don’t expect anyone to come fight our fight. What we’re looking for from the U.S. is to give us the tools to defend our freedom if it came to that.”

Some former U.S. officials who have observed the evolution of the Georgian military over the past decade say the Georgians are owed more than Washington has been willing to give.

“When we were in a corner, so many countries were willing to go with us,” said Damon Wilson, who oversaw European policy at the White House during the final years of the George W. Bush administration and is now executive vice president at the Atlantic Council. “We would be incredibly shortsighted to wash our hands of them.”

Retired Adm. James G. Stavridis, who stepped down as the top military commander of NATO last year, agreed. He said Georgia has earned a formal pathway toward joining the alliance, a process called a “membership action plan.” But he conceded that the misgivings of some alliance members are a significant impediment.

“There are reservations over the fact that 20 percent of their territory is occupied by a large and aggressive neighbor,” said Stavridis, the dean of the Fletcher School at Tufts University. “It would lead the alliance to a place where we would have to make some very difficult decisions.”

NATO officials have signaled that they will not give Georgia a formal accession plan during next month’s summit in Wales, although they expect to offer enhanced status as a partner nation of the alliance.

Stavridis said that the West’s quickly souring relationship with Russia, which began with Moscow’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region earlier this year, could ultimately work in Georgia’s favor.

“As relations between NATO and Russia crater, it enhances the possibility over time of Georgia getting more equipment and training,” he said. And, if the current trajectory holds, perhaps Washington could persuade allies to put the country on a membership track.

“It would show the Russians that Russia doesn’t get a vote on who gets into NATO,” he said.

Ernesto LondoÂ±o

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World

Pentagon selling — and scrapping — equipment in Afghanistan - The Washington Post

FORWARD OPERATING BASE PASAB, Afghanistan — Sorting through the remnants of the United States' longest war, Lt. Joe Mannor has seen it all. There are heaps of old, dusty laptops, tangled telephone cables and battery packs; Danielle Steel novels and a copy of a "Curious George" children's book; and inexplicable items, including a tiny hand-held drone of mysterious origin and purpose.

“After 13 years of war, lots of stuff is just lying around,” said Mannor, 31, who is among the legions of troops tasked with determining what will go home and what will be scrapped. “We’ve had a bit of everything come through here.”

As the Pentagon’s effort to dismantle its massive wartime infrastructure kicks into high gear, defense personnel are jettisoning materiel on an industrial scale. Since last year, Pentagon contractors in Afghanistan have used shredding machines to turn vehicles, generators, housing containers, furniture and other items into scrap.

During that period, they have destroyed more than 643 million pounds of equipment — the equivalent of pulverizing the Titanic seven times. By comparison, the Pentagon scrapped 563 million pounds during the last eight years of the Iraq war.

The Defense Department also is selling some unneeded, functional items at auction to Afghan businessmen for pennies on the dollar — partly in response to criticism that there are more sensible alternatives to scrapping.

The U.S.-led international coalition has reduced its footprint in Afghanistan from a peak of about 800 bases, in 2011, to about 60 and intends to further shrink that to a handful by the end of the year. The logistical feat in a landlocked country with poor roads and a latent insurgency is far more complex than the wind-down of the Iraq war, where the military was able to move goods into neighboring Kuwait with relative ease.

Despite the current political crisis in Afghanistan, where a disputed, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/kerry-urges-afghan-presidential-candidates-to-put-power-sharing-agreement-to-work/2014/07/30/46c725dc-1829-11e4-9349-84d4a85be981_story.html">fraud-plagued election</a> has cast a pall over the future U.S. role there, the Pentagon's drawdown plan remains on schedule and on budget.

"Everything is on track," said <a href="http://www.defense.gov/bios/biographydetail.aspx?biographyid=275">Alan F. Estevez,</a> the Pentagon's top official who oversees logistics. "We're in very good shape."

When the U.S. military drew up plans for the withdrawal here, officials estimated the price of the drawdown would range from $5 billion to $7 billion. Estevez said the most recent projections indicate that it is likely to cost $6 billion.

That is not to say all aspects of the withdrawal have been easy or predictable. When the military began moving items in bulk out of Afghanistan in 2013, shipping containers by land through the Pakistani border was the preferred alternative, much cheaper than using cargo planes. In recent months, though, the cost of the two has largely equalized as customs tariffs and insecure roads have made ground shipments costlier.

Those challenges have made the shredding of equipment that was acquired for several billion dollars a crucial part of the drawdown. 
<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/ordinary-afghans-anxiety-about-future-grows-as-security-deal-with-us-remains-in-limbo/2013/12/13/d73f4564-63ec-11e3-a373-0f9f2d1c2b61_story.html">Many Afghans are nervous about the fate of their impoverished country</a> in the post-American era, and it hasn't always been an easy process to explain.

“They should give this stuff to us,” protested Hajji Nibil, 32, who owns a construction equipment shop in Kabul and is among the scores of Afghan businessmen whose work for the U.S. military has dried up as the force has shrunk. “All this is stuff we could use.”

Some Afghan officials have reacted incredulously, arguing that the destruction of equipment is especially galling at a time when the Afghan economy, long buoyed by wartime spending, is deflating almost as rapidly as the international military footprint.

“Sometimes they might shred things because they are of absolutely no use,” said Najibullah Wardak, a senior Finance Ministry official who has worked with the U.S. military to negotiate the tax revenue the Afghan government gets to collect on the auction sales. “But we were a bit concerned when they started destroying things. Some of this might be of use in the market and could generate revenue.”

U.S. military officials say they have donated plenty to Afghan security forces and other government departments. But they have balked at turning over sophisticated items such as heavily armored vehicles and gas-guzzling generators because they don’t believe the Afghans could afford to maintain them.

“They will take everything and anything you give them,” said Maj. Rob Wolfenden, 37, who is leading the effort to shut down this base in Kandahar province, which is scheduled to close soon. “Part of our job is helping them understand what they can take care of.”

The Pentagon has faced some criticism over its destruction of iconic mine-resistant ambush-protected (MRAP) vehicles, the hulking, heavily armored trucks that were rushed into Iraq and Afghanistan as the threat of powerful roadside bombs escalated.

The Defense Department offered excess MRAPs to allied nations at no cost, provided they could arrange to ship them out of Afghanistan. Only Croatia has taken the department up on the offer, acquiring 162. Officials said that if no more such deals are struck between now and the end of the year, they will have to shred several hundred of the vehicles.

In an effort to find a more cost-effective way to offload unwanted equipment, the Pentagon’s Defense Logistics Agency this summer began selling bulk excess equipment in operable condition to Afghan merchants, who then sell it on the open market. The Pentagon has collected $567,000 by selling items that were acquired for $4.8 million.

The auctioned sale of equipment got off to a slow start this summer because the U.S. military and the Afghan Finance Ministry had to negotiate a mechanism for the government here to collect tariffs on goods that were exempt from them when they arrived in the country.

Ron Williams, the official from the Defense Logistics Agency who is leading the sales program in Afghanistan, said he was surprised by the strong demand for goods. For the first sale, which happened in late June, 80 companies submitted bids.

“I was so pleased we had so many people put in bids,” he said. “We’re putting money back into the economy and trying to establish goodwill.”

Washington Post reporter detained in Iran

Senior U.S. official calls for release of Washington Post reporter in Iran - The Washington Post

A senior Obama administration official on Tuesday called on Iran to release a Washington Post journalist and his wife, as well as two other Americans <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/iran-should-free-post-journalist-jason-rezaian-and-his-colleagues-immediately/2014/07/28/d1bf586a-1673-11e4-9e3b-7f2f110c6265_story.html" title="www.washingtonpost.com">who were arrested in Tehran last week without explanation</a>.

“There is absolutely no reason for this to occur,” Wendy Sherman, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, said at a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The arrest of the Post's Iran correspondent, Jason Rezaian, who holds U.S. and Iranian citizenship, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/state-department-urges-iran-to-release-post-correspondent/2014/07/28/8558a1f6-1692-11e4-9e3b-7f2f110c6265_story.html" title="www.washingtonpost.com">has raised concerns</a>, Sherman said. She said the State Department has used "the appropriate channels, principally the Swiss,'' to convey its message to the authorities in Tehran.

The United States and Iran do not have formal diplomatic relations, and Switzerland provides consular assistance in Iran.

Sherman noted that Rezaian had recently been in Vienna, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/world-powers-look-set-to-extend-talks-with-iran/2014/07/18/967c967a-0ec4-11e4-8341-b8072b1e7348_story.html" title="www.washingtonpost.com">reporting on the high-stakes negotiations</a> with Iran over its nuclear program, the principal focus of Tuesday's hearing. Rezaian's wife, Yeganeh Salehi, who is Iranian, is a correspondent for the National newspaper, which is based in the United Arab Emirates.

Committee Chairman Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) said that Rezaian’s reporting is “certainly . . . balanced.” So, he asked, in the midst of the nuclear talks, “how is it that the Iranians detain U.S. citizens for what is . . . nothing of any great consequence?”

He added, “I hope they understand very clearly that actions like these undermine whatever negotiating posture they have at the table.”

One of the people arrested, the husband of a photojournalist, was released Tuesday, according to a relative. The photojournalist remains in custody, the family member said. Their names are being withheld at the request of the family. Both are Iranian American.

Rezaian's mother issued <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/posttv/world/journalists-mother-pleads-for-his-release-by-iran/2014/07/29/3bb63c52-175f-11e4-88f7-96ed767bb747_video.html" title="www.washingtonpost.com">an appeal on video</a> Tuesday asking Iran to release him and his wife.

Also Tuesday, Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr. (D-Pa.) sent a letter to Secretary of State John F. Kerry expressing his concern about Rezaian’s detention and asking that Kerry “undertake every diplomatic effort to ensure that the Iranian regime does not unjustly punish him and his colleagues for their reporting.”

Sherman's remarks came at a hearing devoted to discussing the status of the negotiations among Iran, the United States and five other world powers to curtail Iran's nuclear program. The countries <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/kerry-in-geneva-raising-hopes-for-historic-nuclear-deal-with-iran/2013/11/23/53e7bfe6-5430-11e3-9fe0-fd2ca728e67c_story.html" title="www.washingtonpost.com">agreed in November</a> on a Joint Plan of Action aimed at reaching a deal to ease sanctions in exchange for ensuring that Iran does not obtain a nuclear weapon.

Menendez and the committee’s ranking Republican, Sen. Bob Corker (Tenn.), stressed that they do not want the negotiations, which have been extended to Nov. 24, to go beyond that date.

“At that point, Iran will have exhausted its opportunities to put real concessions on the table,” Menendez said, “and I will be prepared to move forward with additional sanctions.”

At the hearing, Sherman repeatedly assured the committee that the administration would keep it apprised of the details of the talks and would consult members before agreeing to lift any sanctions, which the government is required to do.

She said there are several criteria for a good agreement, “one that cuts off all of Iran’s potential paths to a nuclear weapon”: limiting Iran’s ability to make plutonium at its Arak reactor, to enrich uranium at its Natanz and Fordow facilities, and to develop a covert nuclear program.

She said sanctions relief would come only after Iran took “verifiable steps” under a comprehensive deal. “Our goal is to structure an agreement that would make any attempt to break out of such an agreement so visible and so time-consuming that Iran would either be deterred from trying or stopped before it could succeed,” Sherman said.

Treasury Undersecretary David S. Cohen said that despite <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/iran-says-it-has-halted-most-sensitive-uranium-enrichment-program/2014/01/20/6c078bd6-81d7-11e3-a273-6ffd9cf9f4ba_story.html" title="www.washingtonpost.com">limited sanctions relief </a>since last fall, Iran remains "in a deep economic hole." The value of the rial has dropped by about 7 percent, and Iran has lost $20 billion in oil revenue in the past six months and stands to lose $15 billion more in the next four months.

Ellen Nakashima is a national security reporter with The Washington Post. She was a member of two Pulitzer Prize-winning teams, in 2018 for coverage of Russia's interference in the 2016 election, and in 2014 and for reporting on the hidden scope of government surveillance. 

Ellen Nakashima

U.S. paratroopers in Afghanistan hope to deal a few final blows against the Taliban - The Washington Post

SHINKAI, Afghanistan — It was a homecoming of sorts for Lt. Col. Paul Larson, returning to this remote corner of southern Afghanistan at the twilight of America's longest war. He was back to take stock of a slice of the battlefield that seemed brimming with possibility when he last led soldiers here a decade ago.

In 2005, Larson was zealous about counterinsurgency, convinced that irrigation projects, agrarian reform initiatives and new schools would plant the seeds of peace, rendering this impoverished, barren area inhospitable to an insurgency that appeared on the brink of defeat.

As he flew to his former outpost late last month, commanding the last U.S. battalion conducting full-spectrum combat operations in Afghanistan, Larson’s mission was narrower, less ambitious and without altruistic impulses.

“It’s a pleasure to be here to help you finish off the last little pockets of Taliban,” the American officer told Col. Gada Mohammed Dost, the Afghan commander who for the past two years has muddled through in this contested sector of southeastern Afghanistan with virtually no American help.

The 82nd Airborne Division paratroopers under Larson’s command have been tasked with dropping into contested areas to examine how Afghan troops are faring as U.S. forces have thinned out and to deal a few final blows to militant groups that have withstood nearly 13 years of American firepower.

The mission has given them a rich vantage point on the state of a war the United States will largely disengage from by year’s end — and the soldiers here have divergent outlooks about the odds that this nation stymied by a rocky political transition, a stubborn insurgency and an anemic economy will somehow stabilize.

As the conflict’s final lethal act, Larson’s men hope to tilt the scales, even if just slightly.

Civilians have been killed and maimed at a growing rate this year as insurgents have sought to make inroads in populated areas where foreign troops have left, according to figures compiled by the U.N. mission in Kabul.

The lion’s share of the fighting is being done by Afghan forces, who have struggled to hold key terrain in recent weeks in southwestern Helmand province as well as a few key districts and roads. Larson’s men have seen relatively little fighting on this deployment, which leads some to believe that Taliban factions are less inclined to fight the Americans.

“If I was an insurgent, I would wait until the Americans left and try my luck with the ANSF,” said Capt. Michael Wallace, 29, who is on his third Afghan deployment. “When we’re with them, they can make us have bad days, but they’re never going to win.”

Just how strong the Taliban remains is somewhat of a mystery. Senior American commanders say the group, like much in this country, finds itself at a crossroads. Some of its international funding sources have dried up as jihadist movements in Syria and Iraq have shown more promise to those who underwrite Sunni insurgencies, U.S. military intelligence officials say.

After the Taliban failed to make good on its threat to foil this spring’s presidential election through violence, several leaders were ousted or sidelined, most significantly Abdul Qayam Zakir, who had been the group’s military commander in Afghanistan. Divisions among hard-line factions and those interested in joining the political process in Kabul have sharpened, U.S. military officials say.

“These rifts have tactical implications,” said Capt. Rick McCuan, 31, the battalion’s intelligence officer. “A fighter on the ground knows he has been loyal to a certain individual in a position of authority, and now there is confusion about whose guidance they should be following.”

The group is militarily weaker than it has been in several years due to the headway Afghan forces have made in securing urban areas and major transportation routes, Lt. Gen. Joseph Anderson, the war’s tactical commander, said in an interview. But they remain a potent threat in the south, as displayed by the intense fighting this summer in Helmand, where numbers of U.S. troops have been reduced most dramatically.

“It was a big deal, because it showed that if they want to do something, they still have the capability,” Anderson said of the Taliban assault there. “The question becomes who has the greater capability to beat who.”

Returning to his old base, Larson said he was struck by the professionalism and discipline of the Afghan soldiers there. “What we have seen is that the Afghan security forces are holding their ground,” he said.

As the American team sought to make the most of its short stay in Zabul province, Larson leaned on the Afghans for actionable intelligence on senior insurgents.

“Attention in the TOC!” Maj. William Canda bellowed, silencing the couple of dozen soldiers crammed into the makeshift tactical operations center they established within one of the few concrete buildings of a former American site called Forward Operating Base Sweeney.

A platoon from the battalion had just gotten into a firefight with a band of suspected Taliban fighters during their first patrol in Zabul. Canda, the battalion’s operations officer, was working the phones and hammering away on his dusty laptop looking for intelligence and options.

Surveillance drones transmitted grainy, live black-and-white video of the platoon’s position, along with footage of suspected militants nearby. Signals intelligence analysts relayed intercepted communications from the militants.

“They just did another call-up,” one analyst said. “They reported that they saw infidels along the wall.”

There was palpable excitement in the room when radio intercepts confirmed that the Taliban commander leading the fight was a fairly senior fighter on the Americans’ target list. Known only by his alias, this was a man the Americans very much wanted to kill.

“Strike him,” Canda said, as his team worked to ensure that an airstrike on the man complied with rules that require a finding of “hostile intent” and assurances that bystanders wouldn’t be hurt. “Smite him.”

The suspected Taliban leader was spared because he was traveling with two other men who didn’t meet the hostile-intent criteria.

A similar frantic effort began the following day when the infantrymen at Sweeney spotted a man traveling on a motorcycle carrying a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

The soldiers spent hours monitoring his movements on the screen. They called Afghan officials in the area to rule out that he could have been a policemen. In the end, they again refrained from ordering a hit.

“He lives to ride his motorcycle another day,” Canda said with some resignation.

Without drones and increasingly infrequent American air support, the experience of the Afghan soldiers under the command of Dost, the Afghan colonel Larson’s men came to help, offers an instructive window into what happens to contested areas once the Americans leave. A couple of years ago, the Afghan officer said, Taliban fighters in the area threatened to take over his base.

“When the Americans left, the Taliban fought us very strongly,” Dost said, sitting cross-legged on the floor of his modest bedroom on the post.

His men fought exceptionally hard, Dost said, and he also made peace with some former Taliban members or supporters who live close to the base, which has kept the immediate vicinity relatively safe.

Over time, the Taliban changed strategy. Instead of fighting for control of urban areas or trying to overrun the base, the group focused on maintaining access to smuggling routes used to ferry fighters, bombs and weapons from Pakistan. To keep Afghan soldiers at bay, Dost said, the Taliban has heavily mined areas around Afghan army bases and the routes their trucks must use to travel, leaving them largely constrained.

“The big problem has become IEDs,” he said, referring to improvised explosive devices. Lacking the sophisticated equipment the U.S. military uses to spot and defuse roadside bombs, Dost’s men must rely on eyesight and instinct to find them and bullets to blow them up “If I’m going from one district to another, I find 50 or 55 IEDs along the route,” Dost added.

Of the smuggling routes Dost’s men are unable to shut down, a corridor in the Dawazagai Pass near the Pakistani border remains a major concern to U.S. military officials. Larson dispatched 100 paratroopers aboard Chinook helicopters there on a recent morning hoping to shut it down — if only for a few days.

Walking silently in single file, the American infantrymen were near the peak of a winding mountain stretch when the first ominous sighting of the day brought the formation to a halt. An Afghan soldier thought he had spotted a white cloth fluttering from a hilltop as the first hints of daylight revealed the valley’s stunning lunar landscape. “The ANA say they see a Taliban flag,” one of the Americans said.

The flag sighting turned out to be a mirage. As morning gave way to a smoldering afternoon, the soldiers perched on the peak of a range overlooking two tiny villages but found few signs of enemy activity — except, possibly, for three men who sped away in motorcycles.

“They’re waiting us out,” Sgt. Adam Letnom, 28, said as he looked down the valley, where a lone shepherd was tending goats. “They know we’re leaving, and they’ll start back up. Since there’s been so much focus on the pullout, it’s probably just smarter to wait.”

Sitting nearby, Staff Sgt. Kenneth Ventrice, 34, who served three tours in Iraq and is on his second Afghan deployment, said he had come to terms with the prospect that the Afghan war will be lost.

“It’s going to fall a lot faster than Iraq did,” Ventrice said.  “Nobody fights like the Taliban.”

A few feet away, an Afghan soldier, Staff. Sgt. Jam Shid, appeared dejected as he agreed with those conclusions. Afghan security forces will start losing ground as more American military resources vanish, he predicted, and could quickly lose control. As his comrades nodded in agreement, Shid said he feels strongly that the American withdrawal time frame is premature.

“If we become weak, all the world will say America failed in Afghanistan,” he said. “If we become strong, all the world will say America succeeded in Afghanistan. One way or another, it will be a good lesson for the enemies of America and Afghanistan.”

State Department urges Iran to release Washington Post correspondent - The Washington Post

The State Department on Monday called for the release of The Washington Post's Iran correspondent, Jason Rezaian, who was <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/post-reporter-other-americans-appear-to-have-been-detained-in-iran/2014/07/24/1a13511e-1356-11e4-8936-26932bcfd6ed_story.html" title="www.washingtonpost.com">detained last week in Tehran </a>along with his wife and two others for undetermined reasons.

Jen Psaki, a spokeswoman for the State Department, said Washington had asked the Swiss government, which helps with U.S. consular cases in Iran, for assistance in Rezaian’s case. The United States and Iran do not have formal diplomatic relations.

“We call on the Iranian government to immediately release Mr. Rezaian and the other three individuals,” Psaki said Monday afternoon during a State Department news briefing.

The Post’s executive editor, Martin Baron, said last week that the newspaper was “mystified” and “deeply concerned” about the arrest, which an Iranian judicial official confirmed Friday.

<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/pb/jason-rezaian" title="www.washingtonpost.com">Rezaian</a>, 38, who holds American and Iranian citizenship, has been The Post's correspondent in Tehran since 2012. His wife, Yeganeh Salehi, 30, is a correspondent for the National newspaper, which is based in the United Arab Emirates.

Salehi’s parents, Fatemeh Talaeee and Koroush Salehi, issued a statement over the weekend expressing concern about the detentions.

“Yeganeh and Jason love Iran and have always tried to show a fair picture of the country in their reporting,” the couple said. “As their parents we have the right to know how they are after six days. We do not know why they are being held but we are certain they have done nothing wrong and would never do anything against Iran.”

Rezaian was born and raised in Marin County, in the San Francisco Bay area. He and his older brother Ali had relatively little exposure to their Iranian father’s homeland until Jason was in his 20s and their dad started going home for visits.

“Once my dad went back the first time, Jason became very interested in it,” Ali Rezaian said in a phone interview from San Francisco. “He started studying Farsi on his own.”

After completing his studies at the New School, a university in New York, in 2000, Jason Rezaian began spending long stretches in Iran, where he worked as a freelance journalist for Western news organizations and helped produce a documentary called <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00153E9S0?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creativeASIN=B00153E9S0&amp;linkCode=xm2&amp;tag=thewaspos09-20" title="www.amazon.com">"A World Between."</a>

At the time, there was some optimism that Iran was becoming more welcoming to dual nationals and the international community in general, Ali Rezaian said.

“It was really important to him that people understand what life was like in Iran,” he said.

Jason Rezaian’s roots in Iran deepened several years ago when he met Salehi, who is Iranian, through mutual friends in the journalism community. The two got married in April 2013 in Iran, in a wedding that blended Jason’s bi-national family and Salehi’s more traditional one.

“The wedding was beautiful,” Ali Rezaian said. “Everyone had a wonderful time; it was a wonderful ceremony.”

The pair have been particularly drawn to feature stories about issues that are not in the news but give readers a taste of modern Iran.

Salehi, for instance, recently filed a piece on <a href="http://www.thenational.ae/world/iran/irans-copycat-version-of-us-comedy-modern-family-angers-conservatives">the controversy ignited</a> by an Iranian imitation of the hit American television series "Modern Family." <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/baseball-in-iran-is-more-like-the-bad-news-bears-than-the-major-leagues/2014/07/16/767f8752-3ea8-4b96-9198-e44136771a25_story.html">One of Rezaian's most recent reports </a>was about surging enthusiasm in Iran for baseball.

As one of the few American-born journalists in Iran, Rezaian was keenly aware of the rigorous rules and procedures foreign correspondents must follow to remain accredited as journalists in the country. He and his wife were mindful of the risks of reporting in a country where the news media is tightly controlled, his brother said.

“Jason is aware of the rules and what he was licensed to do,” he said. “They respected the process put in place there.”

In recent months, the couple planned to start spending significant periods of time in the United States, where Salehi has been approved for permanent residency. They were planning to travel Saturday, Ali Rezaian said. Instead of hosting a homecoming, relatives spent the weekend scrambling for news and leads about the case.

“At this point, the government hasn’t told us where they are being held or what they’re being questioned about,” the brother said.

Hamid Babaei, a spokesman for the Iranian mission at the United Nations, did not respond to an e-mail Monday. Officials have not provided information about the arrest of another couple detained that night, a female photojournalist and her husband. Relatives said Monday that contrary to earlier reports, the husband does not work as a journalist.

News of the arrests has brought back grim memories to Roxana Saberi, an American-Iranian journalist who was detained in 2009 while working in Tehran. Saberi, who works for Al Jazeera America in New York, recalls being interrogated while blindfolded during sessions that dragged on for days.

Detained journalists are often held in solitary confinement, coerced to make false confessions and urged to disclose sensitive information about colleagues and acquaintances, Saberi said in an interview Monday.

“The uncertainty is one of the scariest parts,” she said. “They can make you believe that you can stay there for 10, 20 years or even get the death penalty if you don’t cooperate.”

Saberi said Iranian officials urge detainees to tell their relatives not to publicize their plight. She said she’s glad her relatives and supporters didn’t abide by that request.

“I haven’t seen many cases where staying quiet has helped,” she said. “In high-profile cases like this, it seems the more of a public outcry there is, the better. I believe there are decision-makers in Iran that do care” about the international backlash.


At least 20 killed in Libya clashes

U.S. evacuates embassy in Libya, citing militia violence - The Washington Post

The State Department on Saturday evacuated all U.S. personnel from its embassy in Libya after clashes among rival militias in the capital intensified in recent days in the vicinity of the diplomatic mission, officials said.

Traveling in Paris, Secretary of State John F. Kerry cited the threat posed by “freewheeling militia violence” near the embassy in Tripoli. Kerry said some embassy functions will continue from neighboring Tunisia, where diplomats were taken.

“We will return the moment the security situation permits us to,” Kerry said.

The evacuation of diplomats and other government personnel by land lasted five hours and was carried out with U.S. military aircraft providing security from the air, officials said. The decision was not made lightly, the State Department said.

“Security has to come first,” spokeswoman Marie Harf said in a statement. “Regrettably, we had to take this step because the location of our embassy is in very close proximity to intense fighting and ongoing violence between armed Libyan factions.”

Reuters

Black plumes of smoke is seen in the vicinity of Camp Thunderbolt, after clashes between militants, former rebel fighters and government forces in Benghazi

When U.S. diplomats evacuate a diplomatic post, they must smash computers and other sensitive equipment that could be exploited for intelligence purposes.

The State Department also issued a new travel warning for U.S. citizens, advising against all travel to the country and recommending that Americans in Libya leave now.

“The security situation in Libya remains unpredictable and unstable,” the department said in its warning notice. “The Libyan government has not been able to adequately build its military and police forces and improve security following the 2011 revolution.”

Saturday’s closure of the embassy in Tripoli marked the second time the State Department has shuttered its Libya mission since 2011, when U.S. personnel left as the country’s civil war broke out.

The decision was rich in symbolism, coming less than two years after militants in the eastern city of Benghazi stormed two U.S. government compounds, killing the American ambassador, J. Christopher Stevens, and three of his colleagues.

Since that attack, which ignited a political firestorm, the Obama administration has bolstered security measures for its diplomats in Libya and has sought to take steps to stabilize the oil-rich nation reeling from decades of despotic rule.

The evacuation drew a mixed response from Rep. Edward R.  Royce (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who said it “seems like the right call” given the chaotic security situation in Libya, but added that it also reflected a lack of direction on the administration’s part.

“Our diplomatic absence will make the hard task of achieving political stability in Libya even harder,” Royce said.

In the State Department statement, Harf characterized the evacuation as “temporary” but provided no time frame for a possible return.

Rear Adm. John Kirby, a Pentagon spokesman, said the U.S. military provided F-16 planes, surveillance aircraft and an airborne response force with MV-22 Osprey aircraft.

“The mission was conducted without incident,” he said.

In recent weeks, fighting has spread to Tripoli’s airport, compromising the easiest evacuation route for U.S. personnel. The U.S. ambassador in Tripoli, Deborah K. Jones, conveyed on Twitter how tenuous the security situation has become in recent days.

“Heavy shelling and other exchanges in our Abu Salim neighborhood this morning,” she wrote last Sunday. Using an Arabic term that means “thanks to God,” she added: “Alhamdullila all safe.”

Later in the week, she sought to dispel a rumor suggesting that the United States was flying armed drones over Libya. “We are not engaged in this fighting, just trying to stay safe under fire,” she wrote.

The U.S.-dominated NATO military campaign that enabled rebels to oust longtime Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi in the summer of 2011 was initially hailed as a foreign policy victory for the Obama administration. As the country has descended into chaos, and Islamist militant groups have taken root in the east, Libya has become among the most complex challenges in the region for Washington and its allies.

Officials said the United States remains committed to helping Libya.

“We will continue to engage all Libyans and the international community to seek a peaceful resolution to the current conflict and to advance Libya’s democratic transition,” Harf said. “We reiterate that Libyans must immediately cease hostilities and begin negotiations to resolve their grievances.”

Anne Gearan is a White House correspondent for The Washington Post, with a focus on foreign policy and national security. She covered the Hillary Clinton campaign and the State Department for The Post before joining the White House beat. She joined the paper in 2012.

Anne Gearan

Iran confirms detention of Washington Post correspondent - The Washington Post

An Iranian judicial official confirmed Friday that The Washington Post’s correspondent in Iran is in government custody, according to a report  from a state news agency, but officials shed no light on the nature of an investigation that also led to the detention of his wife and two American citizens earlier this week.

Gholam-Hossein Esmaili, the head the Justice Department in Tehran Province, was <a href="http://www.irna.ir/en/News/2732325/Politic/Official_to_comment_on_arrest_of_%CB%88Washington_Post%CB%88_correspondents_after_investigations">quoted by the Islamic Republic News Agency</a> saying officials would release more information about Post correspondent Jason Rezaian's detention "after technical investigations" are complete.

Martin Baron, The Post’s executive editor, said officials at the newspaper were “mystified” by Rezaian’s arrest and remain “profoundly concerned” for his well-being and the others in custody.

“Unfortunately, we have received no information about Jason’s whereabouts, his condition, or any allegations that might be made against him,” Baron said in a statement. “We remain hopeful that he and his wife and the other detainees will regain their freedom soon and Jason can resume the work that has earned him respect over many years.”

The arrest of Rezaian, 38, who holds American and Iranian citizenship, came as a surprise to colleagues, relatives and close observers of the bilateral relationship between Washington and Tehran, which have been <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/world-powers-look-set-to-extend-talks-with-iran/2014/07/18/967c967a-0ec4-11e4-8341-b8072b1e7348_story.html">negotiating a landmark deal</a> that would bar Iran from developing an offensive nuclear program. He is the first American journalist known to have been taken into custody in Iran since 2009.

Iranian officials have not responded substantively to repeated inquiries from The Post about Rezaian’s detention. Hamid Babaei, a spokesman for the Iranian mission at the United Nations, said Friday he is seeking information from authorities in Iran.

The U.S. State Department said it was “concerned” about reports that the four journalists had been detained but was unable to comment further because of “privacy considerations.”

The United States and Iran do not have diplomatic relations. "In general, in any case involving the detention of a U.S. citizen in Iran, we would work with our protecting power, Switzerland, to request appropriate consular services," State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said. Asked if the Swiss had been contacted to request contact with Rezaian and the others on behalf of the United States, Harf said, "I don't have further details . . . that I'm able to share."

The Post and Rezaian’s relatives have not heard from him since he and his wife, Yeganeh Salehi, were taken into custody Tuesday evening in their Tehran home.

“He hasn’t been able to contact a lawyer who would be able to communicate with us where he is located,” Ali Rezaian, Jason’s brother said Friday.

Mary Rezaian, his mother, said she is worried about whether Rezaian has access to the blood-pressure medicine he takes.

“It’s really important that he have that,” she said in a phone interview from Istanbul. “Who knows if whoever came and took him gave him time to pick that up.”

Experts on Iran said Rezaian’s detention may have been carried out on the orders of hard-line factions within the government that control the intelligence and judicial branches in an effort to undermine President Hassan Rouhani, who is seen as a reformer and has embraced warmer relations with the West.

"He was likely sacrificed in this domestic infighting between the hard-liners and Rouhani's rest of the cabinet," said <a href="http://www.wilsoncenter.org/staff/haleh-esfandiari">Haleh Esfandiari</a>, an Iranian American scholar who heads the Woodrow Wilson Center's Middle East program and was detained in Iran in 2007.

<a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=8&amp;cad=rja&amp;uact=8&amp;ved=0CF0QFjAH&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fenglish.alarabiya.net%2Fauthors%2FCamelia-Entekhabi-Fard.html&amp;ei=WcDSU4TcIM-uyATi8IKYBA&amp;usg=AFQjCNGRiF4EEE_nKHCYVpOogJvmMdVpoQ&amp;sig2=9XPPevB8Ax6SX_aUcBN5dg">Camelia Entekhabifard</a>, an exiled Iranian journalist based in Dubai, said Rezaian's detention has already had a chilling effect on journalists in Iran. Colleagues there who are normally forthcoming with her about sensitive issues are being unusually circumspect, said Entekhabifard, who left the country after she was detained in the summer of 1999.

“Already local media have limited their contacts with us and are alarmed,” Entekhabifard said. “I lived in Iran and know what these ‘midnight raids’ mean. It’s a nightmare.”

She and Esfandiari described Rezaian as a fair and conscientious reporter and said none of his recent stories has been controversial or disclosed sensitive information.

“He’s very careful,” Esfandiari said. “If you look at his articles, there is nothing in them that would compromise him.”

Rezaian, who has served as The Post's Tehran correspondent since 2012, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/pb/jason-rezaian">has written a wide variety of articles</a> about Iranian politics, foreign policy and culture. His mother said Rezaian, who was raised in California, decided to move to his father's homeland as an adult in large part because he felt he could offer a nuanced insight of Iran, which he felt was often vilified in the Western press.

“There was so much negativity,” Mary Rezaian said, explaining her son’s thinking. “Every time Iran was on the news, they would show hostile crowds storming the gates of the U.S. Embassy. He felt that people in the United States needed to understand that there’s more to Iran than that history.”

In a video interview made when he visited The Post’s newsroom in Washington last year for the paper’s Web site, he compared the mood in Iran following the election of Rouhani, to that in the United States following President Obama’s 2008 election.

In Iran, Rezaian said, “there are very high expectations, a lot of pressure on the common man and a very difficult road ahead. I think Iranians, especially in the lower and middle classes, are saying, ‘how can this new administration make things different, other than rhetorically?’ ”

"A big part of that is potential relations with the United States," he said, noting a desire in both countries for "some sort of end to this standoff over Iran's nuclear program. . . . At the end of the day there are many more issues of shared importance . . . that these two countries need to talk about."

In recent months, Rezaian has <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/world-powers-look-set-to-extend-talks-with-iran/2014/07/18/967c967a-0ec4-11e4-8341-b8072b1e7348_story.html" title="www.washingtonpost.com">written from Vienna</a> about Iran's nuclear negotiations with world powers and the effect of international sanctions inside Iran. He has chronicled the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/baseball-in-iran-is-more-like-the-bad-news-bears-than-the-major-leagues/2014/07/16/767f8752-3ea8-4b96-9198-e44136771a25_story.html" title="www.washingtonpost.com">still nascent popularity of baseball in the Islamic Republic</a>, and how its government is grappling with rising <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/women-addicted-to-drugs-in-iran-begin-seeking-treatment-despite-taboo/2014/05/11/b11b0c59-cbb4-4f94-a028-00b56f2f4734_story.html" title="www.washingtonpost.com">female drug addiction</a>. Other recent articles focused on government failure to deal with "<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/irans-water-crisis-the-product-of-decades-of-bad-planning/2014/07/01/c050d2d9-aeeb-4ea1-90cc-54cef6d8dd10_story.html" title="www.washingtonpost.com">a water shortage of epic proportions</a>," and a parliamentary move to <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/06/25/iran-moves-to-ban-permanent-contraception-as-it-tries-to-reverse-birth-rate-decline/" title="www.washingtonpost.com">ban abortions and criminalize permanent forms of contraception</a> as Iran's birthrate has fallen.

The two other Americans detained Tuesday are a female freelance photojournalist and her husband. A relative of the woman said the family is working through contacts in Iran to secure their release. He said relatives have asked that their names not be made public.

Before Rezaian and those arrested with him, at least 10 U.S. citizens have been arrested in Iran over the past decade.

Karen DeYoung is associate editor and senior national security correspondent for The Post. In more than three decades at the paper, she has served as bureau chief in Latin America and in London and as correspondent covering the White House, U.S. foreign policy and the intelligence community. 

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