The United States and its international allies will take up the issue of Afghanistan at a summit next week at The Hague, Netherlands, where Washington is expected to unveil its new strategy for the embattled nation.

Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, writes in The Washington Quarterly that the move to increase the troop presence in Iraq using the "clear, hold, build" strategy used successfully in Iraq will create an environment for gains in Afghanistan.

That strategy replaces a "search and destroy" military doctrine with one that emphasizes the clearing of insurgents, maintaining security and rebuilding local areas.

"The situation in Afghanistan has been fairly bad, but future prospects are reasonably good," he wrote.

O'Hanlon cautioned, however, that the initial surge of just more than 60,000 American and NATO forces to Afghanistan and 140,000 Afghan units may be far short of conventional counterinsurgency requirements.

Standard counterinsurgency doctrine calls for 20 police or soldiers for every 1,000 civilians, suggesting Afghanistan would need something closer to 600,000 troops along those guidelines, he noted.

The international community, however, has the opportunity with its partners to make progress in Afghanistan "with sustained attention and resources," O'Hanlon concluded.

Civilian surge needed in Afghanistan
A surge of European forces to Afghanistan needs to be met by a surge of civilian experts as the solution there is not strictly a military one, an expert said.

Daniel Korski, a senior fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said leaders in the European Union should recognize there is no military solution to the growing insurgency in Afghanistan.

"The EU has increased its efforts in Afghanistan over the last couple of years, with a veritable surge of troops and a rise in development funding," he wrote. "However, it does not have a coherent strategy and as a result is doing less than it could and a lot less than the situation merits."

The policy review comes ahead of the public unveiling of the new American strategy for Afghanistan, expected to be released at an international summit on the issue next week at The Hague, Netherlands.

Korski said the EU is in a position of strength to offer the non-military assistance required to build up Afghan domestic capabilities while encouraging regional support for the war-torn country.

"Once Europe has agreed a new policy with the United States, it should pull together its trans-Atlantic strategy and its own new initiatives in a new EU Afghanistan strategy," he concluded.

Leave Afghanistan, Khatami tells Australia
Former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, on a visit to Australia to promote dialogue with the West, called on Canberra to pull its troops from Afghanistan.

Khatami, considered a moderate among the political elites in Iran, spoke to an audience Wednesday at the Australian National University, touting the role Iran has played in its eastern neighbor, the Australian Broadcasting Corp. reports.

"The one and only country to have been practically contributing to the situation in Afghanistan has been Iran as a neighbor," the former president said.

More than 1,000 Australian troops are deployed to the region in support of Operation Slipper, Australia's military effort in support of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan.

Khatami chastised foreign troops entering the region, saying it was time for Western forces to leave.

"So we see that some troops are coming all the way from the other side of the world there, in order to establish peace and security there," he said. "We tell them to just leave them alone; they would not cry any more."

His comments come a week before the international community convenes for an international summit on Afghanistan at The Hague, Netherlands.

U.S. effort in Iraq needs overhaul
Plans for U.S. military forces in Iraq to decrease their troop numbers by 140,000 by the end of 2011 will require a "massive" effort, a government report said.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office, in a report to Congress released Wednesday, called on the administration of President Barack Obama to develop an update to its Iraq strategy that defines clearly its goals, objectives and necessary resources.

The GAO said that in the wake of the counterinsurgency effort known as the surge, Iraq has realized security and political gains, but several challenges are left unattended.

The report said the Iraqi government still requires assistance in capital investments, support at the ministerial level and help providing basic services to its citizens.

On the reconstruction front, U.S. officials in Iraq will need to provide assistance to the government to distribute its estimated $47 billion budget surplus from 2008 in order to foster economic development.

Meanwhile, with U.S. forces preparing to pull back to their major bases while setting the stage for a significant drawdown, Washington will need to develop a strategy to transition the military effort in Iraq to a civilian-based system.

Finally, the GAO warned that the logistical effort needed to remove 140,000 troops from Iraq in the next two years will be a significant endeavor.

"The redeployment of these forces and the removal of their equipment and material will be a massive and expensive effort," the report said.

Democracy not yet rooted in Iraq
The democratic movement in Iraq is not supported by the electoral system and suffers from a political climate of traditional loyalties, a politician said.

Communist Party leader Hameed Majeed Musa, who leads a socialist and democratic coalition called the Madaniyoun list, said in an interview with the Iraqi political Web site Niqash.org that though the political system has evolved from the despotic regime of Saddam Hussein, there is still progress needed.

On U.S. efforts to establish a democratic system in the wake of the 2003 ouster of Saddam, Musa said the American overseers were selective in who they brought to power.

"Yes it is true that they brought down Saddam's regime, but they were biased and favored certain parties and forces at the expense of others and provided them with the necessary support to develop," he said.

He added that Iraqi is still learning the nuances of a democratic government, noting traditional loyalties may skew political development there.

"Underdevelopment, illiteracy and sub-identities still impact people," he noted.

The electoral law in Iraq uses a coefficient system that considers the total number of votes over available provincial seats. Musa further protested that system does not create a fully representative system.

"What kind of democracy is this?" he questioned.

Iraq drawdown eases stress
Despite an increase in Afghanistan, the drawdown of U.S. troops in Iraq will allow the military to lengthen the time between deployments, officials said.

"I think that with reduced forces in Iraq and with force levels I see in the future for Afghanistan, we can start to build more time at home," said the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Navy Adm. Mike Mullen. "I think that's absolutely vital."

The United States, under a bilateral Status of Forces Agreement with Iraq, is expected to pull more than 100,000 troops from the country in the next two years. Meanwhile, U.S. President Barack Obama has called for an additional 17,000 U.S. forces in Afghanistan to boost the war effort there.

Mullen said that though some specialized forces will still be subject to the stop-loss program of extended tours, a decision to phase out the practice by U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates was a positive step for troop morale.

Meanwhile, with suicide rates among American soldiers on the rise, Mullen said his forces are under extreme pressure from fighting a war on two fronts, the American Forces Press Service reports.

"I think that is reflective of the pressure we are under," he said.

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