In comments issued today, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen urged the nation’s 28 member states to quickly endorse Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s plan for a massive escalation in Afghanistan.
“There is a need for rapid decisions,” Rasmussen insisted, though he conceded that he understood how the uncertainly stemming from August’s fraudulent presidential election has led to delays.
NATO defense ministers will be meeting this week in Slovakia, and though Rasmussen says it is unlikely they will come to any decisions at that time, it is expected to be the primary topic discussed by US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who is also of the opinion that escalation can’t wait.
Gen. McChrystal’s strategy involves a request for 80,000 additional US soldiers, on top of the 68,000 committed to the Afghan War. The growing unpopularity of the war across the world, however, will make it very difficult for many NATO nations to reciprocate with escalations of their own.
Anders Fogh Rasmussen was the right-wing Prime Minister of Denmark. Elected on after a xenophobic campaign punctuated by his rants against "illegal aliens," Rasmussen was hailed by the Bush administration for his strong anti-immigrant policies as well as his tax cutting populism. Rasmussen is an unreconstructed believer in Reaganomics. A strong ally of George W. Bush, Rasmussen supports the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as neocon imperialism.