President Barack Obama is enamored with the middle ground to a fault. Reports indicate that Obama, who is scheduled to officially articulate his Afghan Plan on December 1, is splitting the difference by ordering a troop increase of 32,000 to 35,000 additional troops from an already overstretched military; to his credit, however, he continues to insist on an exit strategy.
The risks of this approach are manifold. A troop increase, no matter how good its intentions, is likely not to change the facts on the ground. Our soldiers already outnumber Taliban fighters 12-to-1. By many estimations there are 100 or less al-Qaeda operatives in the country. Key to the war we wage against both groups is Waziristan, the hinterlands of Pakistan that enemy fighters can move freely into but we cannot follow save with predator drones.
President Hamid Karzai is largely viewed as corrupt by Afghanistan’s people after the elections earlier this year, and there are some questions about his mental state. His power, and that of the U.S. military, is strongest in urban centers. It’s quite another story in rural areas, where the Taliban routinely threatens villagers for even talking to us.
America has been fighting in Afghanistan since 2001, and if this surge isn’t effective, it will only embolden the insurgency. We don’t have many troops left to send after that, so it’s not like the surge can be upsurged. President Obama would do best to remember where all the emergency exits are before running deeper into the burning building.
