Entrenched among people whose opinions will not budge, the problem over when Egypt's new constitution should be drawn up continues. And America's planned troop pullout from Afghanistan is being called a defeat. Doaa El-Bey and Rasha Saad read the papers The pundits this week focussed on the significance of the US announcement it will withdraw 33,000 of its troops from Afghanistan in one year's time. In the London-based daily Al-Qods Al-Arabi, Abdel-Bari Atwan described US President Barack Obama's announcement as "a frank admission of defeat and a desperate attempt to minimise losses." In 'US Afghan troop withdrawal is a victory for Taliban' Atwan reminded readers that President Obama considered accomplishing the mission in Afghanistan his administration's top priority and set out three objectives for the mission in his speech in which he announced the increase in the number of American troops there by 30,000. The first objective, Atwan wrote, was to build the Afghan nation and state, install a competent president at its head, strengthen it with elected institutions, and train its security forces on a modern basis. The second was to fight Al-Qaeda. The third was to stop the Taliban's military advances on the ground. "Most of these objectives have not been achieved," Atwan charges. He said the Afghan state exists only in a quarter of the capital Kabul, and Afghan security forces, whose training cost coalition countries' taxpayers almost $6 billion, cannot even guarantee the safety of the country's president. This task is entrusted instead to the Marines. Thus Atwan argued that President Obama made the decision for the quick withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan for domestic reasons and not because he accomplished his mission there. He explained that in addition to the other conflict in Iraq, this war has so far cost the US more than $1 trillion, at the rate of $7 billion a month in Afghanistan alone. "American public opinion has started to oppose it and it could turn into a pivotal issue in the presidential election when campaigning starts officially this coming fall," Atwan wrote. In the London-based daily Al-Hayat, however, Mustafa Zein, had a different interpretation. Zein wrote that President Obama's withdrawal decision suggests that the killing of Osama Bin Laden will bring security to Afghanistan. It also suggests that the Taliban have become powerless and are no longer able to continue fighting their war. Yet, Zein acknowledges, the facts assert that the Taliban remains in control of a large part of the country, and that it could reach Kabul and expand its operations to include the areas that fall under the control of Hamid Karzai's government. Thus, Zein argues, the fact of the matter is that the United States has begun to prepare the ground for a military retreat from Afghanistan and Iraq, relying on local forces to fill the vacuum. According to Zein, it is on such a basis that the US has engaged in negotiations with the Taliban not such a short time ago, accompanied by parallel talks with Pakistan. And in a show of good faith from the United States, Zein continues, the UN Security Council, driven by Washington, took a decision a few weeks ago that makes the distinction between the sanctions imposed on the Taliban and those imposed on Al-Qaeda, in order to encourage the former to join the government. "The United States seeks to restore Pakistan's role in the region, and seems to have reached an understanding with Islamabad over the specifics of such a role," concludes Zein. In the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat, Abdel-Rahman Al-Rashid focussed on the impact of the riots in Syria on Hizbullah. Al-Rashid wrote that Hizbullah's mission, since the group's establishment in 1982, has been limited to confronting Israel, and that this mission allowed the group to obtain Arab respect, Iranian funding and local influence. "However, today Hizbullah finds itself in an extremely difficult situation. Its enemies have multiplied and increased to the extent that Israel is now the least of their worries," Al-Rashid wrote. Al-Rashid stated that more than half of the Lebanese people are against Hizbullah while most Arabs are against it. Syria seems to have abandoned it or at least distanced themselves from the Lebanese group. Al-Rashid also perceives that whatever the group faced in the past cannot be compared to what Hizbullah will face in the future "because the most dangerous challenge for Hizbullah today has come from an unexpected side: Syria." Syria has been Hizbullah's neighbour, ally and protector for over 30 years. However, explained Al-Rashid, the popular uprising spreading throughout Syria is witnessing the demonstrators openly chanting anti-Hizbullah slogans and accusing the Lebanese group of supporting the Al-Assad regime in suppressing and even killing the demonstrators. He added that Hizbullah's mentality of seeking to dominate Lebanon by force will face severe challenges in the forthcoming stage. "Syria was playing the role of custodian and ally to Hizbullah, a role which it seems to have given up, even before the situation in Damascus is resolved one way or another," Al-Rashid wrote. In its editorial, the Qatari newspaper Al-Watan said the world is trying to predict what will happen in Syria as the number of Syrian refugees reached 11,000, according to human rights organisations. "It is obvious that the Syrian regime is maintaining its violent confrontations with peaceful demonstrators with the number of dead rising to 18 on Friday. Every day that passes without solving the Syrian crisis in a rational way opens the door to various options," the editorial wrote. In an article also in Asharq Al-Awsat, Adel Al-Toraifi posed the question: "Are Arabs ready for democracy?" Al-Toraifi acknowledged that some may consider the question to be unfair or a playing down of current events, yet he insists it is crucially important -- and legitimate -- that this question be put forward without reservations "unless the object of these uprisings is to overthrow the ruling despotic regimes and hastily replace these with another form of despotism just to fill the vacuum." Among other examples, Al-Toraifi cited statements by the prime minister of the Egyptian interim government Essam Sharaf that postponing the elections would help efforts "to reorganise the country" following the chaos of the revolution. The call is also reiterated by many of the so-called Egyptian intellectual elites. "Why are these people frightened to go to the ballot box immediately, now that their countries have regained their freedom and are now able to carry out elections without voter fraud? The answer is simple: They are frightened because they are not certain of the probable electoral results should the elections take place at this time," Al-Toraifi argued. The Egyptian demonstrators reacted furiously to statements by figures of Mubarak's regime that Egyptians are "not ready for democracy" at this stage. Demonstrators said that such talk consecrates the concept of despotism. "Yet such statements are now being repeated by revolutionary leaders during this interim period, so we must reconsider this issue once more, examining it away from feverish revolutionary slogans in order to see whether Arabs are truly serious about establishing democracy," Al-Toraifi wrote.
