If President Obama is serious about generating a credible Afghan government that is capable of holding back the Taliban, do we believe that the one now in place will suffice?
I just watched the Presidential Address on C-Span's website... it is a long speech, but one of Obama's better ones. I admit to having been somewhat swayed early on by the picture that he painted of a world united behind the effort to address the threat to security posed by the 9/11 attacks on the United States.
Nevertheless, I hold reservations about the idea that we will be able to produce an Afghan government that will be strong enough to resist this insurgency. Increasing our troop presence may aid our ability to fight the foe. But will this fighting indeed preserve an Afghan state worth keeping? Or will it, like other frail Asian governments we have sought to prop up with our blood and treasure, fold like a proverbial cheap suit once we leave?
I remain unconvinced that Karzai's Afghanistan is a viable country, or that we can make it so with another couple of years, a few tens of thousands more troops, and some billions more dollars. If our president's pronouncements are to be believed, our security is already under threat from al Qaeda in its current "safe havens" (one might credibly call them "strongholds") within the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area. If my recollection serves and the maps I have seen are accurate, this "border area" has come to include a hefty percentage of both Afghanistan and Pakistan. Even "hopeful" Obama makes no claim now that we will be able to eradicate these existing strongholds completely. So I wonder how much First World security will benefit from this troop increase.
If the fighting further intensifies, it would seem possible that more infrastructure will be destroyed than will be built in Afghanistan during the next two years. And if the history and "personality" of the Afghan people is any indication, then our most desired objective, to bolster the Afghan morale and willingness to continue this fight, may prove most elusive of all.
I am skeptical of this plan, but I feel that we're backed into a corner. Do we withdraw and risk the Taliban undoing the small amount of progress we've made? Do we send more troops and create an illusion that this government is stable and capable? It's a gargantuan task which I think requires more "ground-up" approaches in building schools, opium-alternative crops and other education/infrastructure initiatives.
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