WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump will announce his new strategy for South Asia in an address to his nation on Monday night, which may lead to an escalation in the Afghan war, the US media reported.

US Defence Secretary James Mattis told a Pentagon press team that the new strategy will also include a segment on Pakistan, as Washington believes that Pakistan’s cooperation was necessary to bring peace and stability to Afghanistan.

A White House announcement confirmed that President Trump will address will address the nation’s troops and the American people at 9pm from Fort Myer in Arlington, VA.

The White House also said that the address will be “an update on the path forward for America’s engagement in Afghanistan and South Asia” but did not disclose details of the new policy prepared by a White House national security team after months of deliberations.

At a briefing for the Pentagon press team, Secretary Mattis agreed with a journalist that part of the new policy will deal with Pakistan. “Yeah, you defined it accurately. It is a South Asia strategy. It is not just an Afghanistan strategy,” the secretary said.

When reminded how previous administration tried to push Pakistan to take action against the alleged terrorist safe havens on its soil but failed, Secretary Mattis said the new strategy “we’ll be addressing those issues” but “once he announces what the strategy is, we can get more precise on Afghanistan troop levels, what we’re going to do with that.”

CNN reported on Monday that in his address to the nation, President Trump will ask Americans to trust him on his new Afghanistan strategy.

The reported indicated that the president could announce an escalation in the war at a time when his own political standing was deeply compromised.

This will be his his first prime-time broadcast on a specific policy, and include “a potential escalation of the nation’s longest war, after a lengthy period of deliberations that carved deep splits within his administration.”

In a report on the presidential address, the Atlantic magazine noted that during the 2016 campaign, Mr. Trump pledged that if he became president, “the era of nation-building will be ended,” but he may now announce sending several thousand more troops to “take part in a war that has been going on since some of them (soldiers) were toddlers.”

The report also predicted that Congress will endorsed the expected escalation. “Democrats … will mostly look the other way. And the longest war in American history will grind on, despite the fact that almost no one believes America can win.”

The New York Times noted that the expected escalation comes at a time when the Taliban insurgents have increased their pressure on the Afghan government and have seized at five districts and a strategic valley in the past month.

“The Taliban now control or dominate 48 of the country’s roughly 400 administrative areas, the most they have held since being ousted from power in 2001,” the report added.

Published in Dawn, August 22nd, 2017