The expert also says that the mass exodus of the Albanians from Kosovo which created a major humanitarian crisis was caused by the NATO bombings, not by Serbian ‘ethnic cleansing’ or actions by the Serbian armed forces. Today, ten years after the events, it is clear that there have never been ‘thousands of Albanian victims’ of which the Western media spoke as of a fact beyond doubt back in 1999.

The same paper comments on U.S. president Barack Obama’s recent remark about an ‘exit strategy’ that the U.S. may need in Afghanistan. The paper says different signals have been received from the Washington administration’s leading figures pointing at a change in the Afghanistan policy. If a few months ago it was war to the victorious end, today it is the containment of the threat, negotiations with every side including the Taliban (both its ‘moderate’ members and hard core leadership), and an attempt to involve Pakistan and India.

The paper quotes experts who say that including Pakistan and India into the circle of nations that are called to solve the Afghan problem is a very wise step on the part of Washington, as well as the idea about forming the U.S. Pakistan and Afghanistan policies simultaneously, making them interconnected and interdependent: Pakistan is close with the Taliban and is also an ally of the U.S. while India can watch over Pakistan for the U.S. and the international community, as it is watching Pakistan as a rival anyway.

A Russian expert says to the paper: “It is a good idea, because there is hardly anyone in the U.S. administration and the whole establishment who knows how to get out of Afghanistan where the situation deteriorates by the day. With India and Pakistan on board as allies, the U.S. efforts may start to work. At the moment, the Karzai government which receives exorbitant sums in ‘life support’ from the West controls only one half of the capital, Kabul, and nothing beyond that.”

KOMMERSANT continues the topic in an article titled ‘Russia is being returned to Afghanistan.’ The article says that the new U.S. plan for Afghanistan includes a massive anti-terrorist operation followed by new general elections and multi-lateral efforts to maintain the ‘terrorism-free status of Afghanistan’ ever after. That includes also the dismissal of the current ‘unsuccessful’ president Hamid Karzai who is to be replaced.

However, says the paper, Karzai argues that he has been as successful as he could be under the circumstances when there is a war in his country, and that war is completely controlled and conducted by foreigners. He threatens that he would turn away from Washington towards Moscow if the plan for his replacement is not dropped. Besides, says the paper, Hamid Karzai has already addressed Moscow with several requests for assistance.

The paper says that Afghanistan cannot purchase armaments in Russia if the U.S. doesn’t allow it: the Afghan government lives off Western aid and it is bound by exclusive supply contracts with the U.S. and several other NATO countries. Russia, though, may help and already helps politically: during a recent visit to Kabul Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov said that Russia stands against foreign interference in the process of the Afghan election.

Dmitry Trenin of the Moscow Carnegie Center writes in the same newspaper that Afghanistan is the same for Barack Obama as Iraq was for George W. Bush: a platform on which he is trying to solve political problems by military means. The writer says that the shift from the idea of building a new democratic state in Afghanistan to the more realistic plan of lowering the threat Afghanistan presents for the world community has caused the current changes in the U.S. Afghanistan policy.

The writer also says that Iraq may prove to be an easier case than Afghanistan: its problem cannot be solved without the participation of Pakistan while that country is torn by constant rivalry and confrontation of political clans, extremist Islamic groups, Al-Qaeda which sits firmly in Pakistan’s borderline areas, and all that makes the nuclear power populated by 150 million people extremely unstable.

In these circumstances major powers tend to act unilaterally and rely on themselves, writes the author: the U.S. is more and more taking over the NATO operation in Afghanistan, in addition to its own unilateral actions. China doesn’t want to interfere, fearing unrest in its own Islamic provinces. Russia allows the transit of NATO supplies through its territory but squeezes U.S. military bases out of Central Asia. India watches Pakistan intently, and looks upon the problems of Afghanistan solely from the point of view of Pakistan’s role and actions there.

Trenin says that a tendency towards rivalry between major powers involved in the Afghan problem is already showing clearly and warns that historical experience demonstrates that if there can be a solution to the problems of Afghanistan, it is usually found and implemented by the Afghan people, not by foreigners. He says that the entrance fee in a new Great Game to be played out in Afghanistan is going to be too high for anyone.

Evgeny Belenkiy, RT.