Iraq pales in comparison to Palestine issue. No question Al-Qaeda poses grave threat, so Afghanistan far outweighs Iraq. However, if after eight years after invasion, experts are discussing a good implementable strategy for Afghanistan, then it is best to cut U.S/ NATO's losses and do the following:
1. Let Pashtuns run their South & East Afghanistan which will safe gaurd Pakistan's concern for defense in depth. However, to get this buffer zone, Pakistan should be made to take on the Al-Qaeda bases in Pakistan with U.S/ NATO support.
2. To other neighbours (Russia, central Asia, India & Iran) Taliban are untouchables, so they will have to pitch in provide all out support to North & West Afghanistan against Taliban.

I remember you saying some thing along the lines of... (paraphrasing) The failure of 9/11 wasn't training camps in Afghanistan, it was that a couple of terrorists trained to fly planes got into those cockpits... You can train to take down planes in a basement..

So "now", we're in Afghanistan because of an unstable government in Pakistan a country with nukes. But our very presence in Afghanistan makes that more difficult... And Pakistan (as we are seeing in Afghanistan) is not a full partner by any means... And the very people we are trying to help are fighting us...

What did UBL want? For the U.S to invade a muslim country after 9/11... and bleed us.. of both blood and treasure. How is he doing?

Two quotes from 11/01/09 NYT mag:

1st: "Once again we are told by experts that we must spend more blood and money to win the war, whatever winning means- to define it would demonstrate its impossibility." Robert Dunn Corte.

2nd: "Escalating a war that can't be won doesn't improve the odds; it merely deepens the catastrophe..." Susan Carruthers PH.D Rutgers University

May be one of the burdens of power... is not being able to us it.

Enjoy the weekend everyone.

Tom:

You mentioned David Ignatius' Sunday Post Article where he draws reference to the two mindsets: Peace to Afghanistan but Death to the Taliban.

Essentially, he is adding some flesh to the bone of your realization that winning in a complex country like Afghanistan requires a very complex, multi-layered chess board.

Not that other choices are not also fraught with problems, but playing the two sided game is great on paper. Implementing it through soldiers on the ground, who often can't differentiate between the subtle reasons of who id dissing them and who is shooting at them, and through weapons with the potential for collateral damage is a little more challenging than having the whole orchestra play at once.

The Complexity of Joint Action (Implementation, Wildavsky & Pressman, the long out-of-print 1984 public administration thriller of why government action, even with full support and resources, sometimes fails) is an instructive read.

You are kidding right? At least Kerry made a auguement of worth upon his return. Newsflash, all of these are important countries, all countries need security and guess what , the US is not the only nation that needs oil security. The greatest joke that was ever played on the world was placing such a vital resource under the control of the world most inept and backward societies.

I vaguely recall seeing a tentative map of checkpoints somewhere in West Africa. They were everywhere, and it looked as though a whole lot of shaking-down was going on.

Checkpoints must be a source of economic strangulation wherever enterprising local governments/strongmen/criminals can get away with it. There must be technical literature on how much, and where.

I find both writers troubling. They tend towards either/or solutions. Fortunately, comments leaking out of the White House indicate that the administration is smarter than that.

We aren't even considering McChrystal's high option - 80,000 troops - because they aren't available. Even 40,000 will be a real strain and is probably not sustainable.

That means we need to set priorities on missions and locales, considering the context. We don't have an Afghan national government or security force capable of filling their role in a COIN project. And as long as we make up for their failings, the Afghans have limited incentives to take on more risk and expense.

The answer is that we can protect cities and prevent a Taliban take over, and possibly some security in strategic rural regions where we work, Anbar Awakening style, with local sheiks. When and if the national government is fixed and the security forces ready, we can move into rural areas one valley at a time. By that time, it must be primarily an Afghani operation, and it must recognize that only a highly federalized state is possible in Afghanistan.

I'm not sure I buy your call, Mr Ricks.

Friedman is persistently irritating in terms of want of detail, but that is partly a result of his determinedly futurist style. These shortcomings do make it easier for him to frame bigger pictures.

Ignatius's article, is, in its own way, no less pollyannic: it is a great step from noticing that an increased US troop presence will achieve modest real gains on the ground, to asserting that the conflict can be positively resolved by such a strategy. Pashtun culture does not readily lend itself to US notions of nation building.

Is Afghanistan more important than Iraq? Traditionally, no. Economically, no. But if you put enough soldiers there, it can become more important.

If troops were withdrawn altogether, however, the capacity of Afghan enemies to wage war on America or American interests would be very small indeed. Less, even, than that of those Wall Street bankers in embryo, the Somali pirates.

Why isn't the US occupying Somalia? Because it's not a very good idea.