It’s time to get real about Afghanistan. Withdrawal is not a serious option. The United States, NATO, the European Union, and other nations have invested massively in stabilising the country over the past eight years, and they will not — and should not — abandon it because the Taleban is proving a tougher foe than anticipated.
But it’s also time for the Obama administration to get real about the country. There continues to be a large gap between the goals being outlined by the administration and the means available to achieve them. This gap is best closed not by sending in tens of thousands more troops but rather by understanding the limits of what we can reasonably achieve in Afghanistan.
The most important reality of the post-9/11 world has been the lack of any major follow-up attack. That’s happened largely because Al Qaeda has been on the run in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The campaign against terrorist groups in both countries rests on ground forces and intelligence. A senior US military official involved in planning these campaigns told me that America’s presence in Afghanistan has been the critical element in the successful strikes against Qaeda leaders and camps. Were America to leave the scene, all the region’s players would start jockeying for influence over Afghanistan. That would almost certainly mean the revival of the poisonous alliance between the Pakistani military and the hardest-line elements of the Taleban.
http://newageislam.com/the-way-out-of-afghanistan-/war-on-terror/d/1786
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