Coll describes four permanent conditions with no end-point to be driven by outsiders. And none remotely equivalent to the US and global threats of the Cold War. We contained the latter with ... containment. We applied international mechanisms to this international threat. We avoided direct military combat assiduously. But Coll would have the 'we' of his discussion be we gringos and he would have the mechanism for contending with these 4 threats continuation of direct armed intervention. Or so seems his murky argument.

Big world. Bad things happen. Bad things might happen. Either we beggar our nation and abandon its perennial goals to go after these bad things ... or ... we ignore the ignorable, contain the containable, and reserve direct military action as last resort and not our permanent one-size-fits-all answer.

And for a perhaps better look at the true nature of the 'threat' in Afghanistan, try Matthieu Aikins' "The Master of Spin Boldak" in December Harper's magazine. Now there's a nation to build on.

Taking on the author of "Ghost Wars" is a humbling experience, but I find his commentary to be deeply dissatisfying and your endorsement of it somewhat surprising.

I will assume that Coll has written elsewhere about how he would manage the AfPak mess. Fifty or one hundred thousand more troops, perhaps? Or even more? Five or 10 years, perhaps? Or even more?

But by framing his argument entirely on losing the war he overlooks what to me are two huge considerations.

* This is mission creep at its worst.

* Winning the war is simply not possible in the sense of winning it in Iraq, which you delineated so incredibly well in "The Gamble."

As you yourself have noted in passing, Afghanistan is ungovernable, there are not two enemies -- the Taliban and AQ -- but rather many dozens of disparate groups with but a single goal -- doing to the U.S. what the locals did to the Russians and the Brits before them.

No amount of boots, resources and years will turn things around.

Everyone understands that AFG matters. The issue is whether adding more soldiers to the mix is what will prevent the disasters Coll envisions. We've been doing exactly what al Qaeda wants long enough. More soldiers will not help, but will only makes things worse.

Why can't we go back to the good'ol days of 2002, with B-52s on call and embed teams in the Northern Alliance militia?

A proper exploration of the above question will help guide our strategic discussion. What is it that requires an American soldier, rather than an Afghan gunman?

1.) Is it because we trust the soldier to respect the laws of war, as opposed to the gunman?

2.) Is it because we do not trust certain Afghan warlords?

3.) Is it because the Northern Alliance do not want to rule Pashto Afghanistan?

. . . that folk don't want to "make Afghanistan better," if I may put it that way. The problem is that they doubt we can.

Our military can do all kinds of destructive, and some kinds of constructive, things, it's true.

But Tom, you've said yourself that the Surge in Iraq while successfully improving security, ultimately failed. Why?

Because we wanted the Iraqis to take the opportunity we provided to do what Americans would have done: log-roll, make deals, compromise, draw back and lick their wounds and wait to come back after the next election, whatever . . .

We're being asked to support an Afghan surge, but does anyone think it will work? If so, tell us how it's going to happen, and I'm behind it.

I know it is unpopular to think of an Afghanistan without exits, but the reality is that our interests in Afghanistan are no less than they should have been in the 1950's, or should be in the 2050's. Trying to bring some level of minimal stability and minor prosperity to a Megido-like place at the confluence of many internal and external dynamics.

The long-term strategy is inter-related--- minimal stabilty and minor prosperity---but the passing tactics of troop deployments vs. overwatch, aggressive economic investments vs. passive and minimal ones, and political assertiveness vs."influence" will wax and wane over the decades.

As framed by Steven Coll in this admittedly minimal piece is the idea of failure of our current military tactics, but I am struggling with several connections not made.

First, if about 60% of the population is Pashtun, only a fraction support the Taliban, and many distinctly oppose them. Implicit in the "failure" assumption is that all Pashtuns are Taliban, and that allowing the majority of the country to rule is the same as allowing the Taliban to return.

Second, if the Taliban has minimal support, and some aggressive opponents, how, other than the potential for continuing civil strife, does the Taliban (in its 1990's form) establish and maintain a national government?

Third, if, instead, a Taliban leadership gain control of Kabul, what does that mean for the whole country? What do the other regional players do in response (and particularly with backing and arming opposition)? If, for example, India chooses to become the funding/armament source for Northern Alliance 2.0, is that a loss for the US's strategic interests, or just a loss of jingoistic prestige?

Assuming more troops are needed, and that is way beyond my lane to understand, what is the mission and objective of those troops, and how does it relate, or not, to the failure Coll has articulated?

The Irish and the Taliban use the same creed: He who fights and runs away lives to fight another day. Is there any wisdom in that creed that could be useful at this time in our overall long-term strategy?

Steve

1. Since the mid '80s Afghanistan's opium production has increased 14-fold, from around 500 tons to this year's 6,900 tons (December Harper's)

2. There are about 100 Al Qaeda members in Afghanistan (multiple citations).

Is it our goal to continue the conditions that increase of the first number or to find those last 100 bad guys? Either way, it's a mug's game.

As an alternative, how about 'screw it.'

On a 90s-style Afghan Civil War

There already IS a civil war. It's just that we're fighting it on behalf of the Northern Alliance at the moment. We'd have to turn it over to them to fight. Also, one key difference between the 90s War and the new one would be that we would be backing one of the sides with arms, money and diplomatic cover. As would the rest of the world. So all the nasty things that our Tajik, Uzbek, and Hazara brethren would be doing to the Pashtuns would be looked over by virtually every major player on the International scene.

On momentum for a Taliban revolution in Pakistan

I usually agree with Steve Coll about AfPak but the logic behind this scenario is murky, at best. The ISI, as a rule, still backs the 'Afghan Taliban.' The loose coalition of militants that exists in FATA and NWFP that are known as the 'Pakistani Taliban' have distinct ambitions from the 'Afghan Taliban.' They attack ISI and Pak military targets, and the leaders have supposedly said they would target NATO convoys once they're 'finished' with the Pak Army. No one yet knows what the future of the two Talibans is going to be. Steve's assumption seems to be the 'worst case scenario.' And even then it doesn't address the fact that the 'Afghan Taliban,' in helping the 'Pakistani Taliban,' would be biting the hand that helped create them (ISI), sustain them, protect them, and brought them back to power again.

On The India Issue

This nightmare scenario is based on the assumption that the previous hypothesis turns out almost exactly as Steve surmises. And even if that is the case... it pre-supposes that a militant-insurgent movement of several tens of thousands will somehow exert coersive influence on one of the world's largest militaries, who hasn't yet even fully mobilized a single Corp to fight against it, and a population of 170 million people, most of whom are currently amenable to elections and parliamentary rule (no matter how corrupt). This not to mention that the rank and file of the Pakistani Taliban are almost universally Pashtun, and most Pashtuns don;t support them, and even if they did they only constitute at most 45 mil out of the 170 million strong Pakistani nation.

On the Increased ambitions of Al Qaeda

Like it or not, Al Qaeda isn't going anywhere, regardless of what happens in Afgahnistan. If its not Afghan, it'll be FATA and NWFP. If not there then Somalia and East Africa in general, Sudan, Chechnya... Al Qaeda is not a set number individuals, organizations, or cells. It's a psychosis. Perhaps giving them a haven will make it easier to hurt them. Their own Emirate is perfect bait.

Whew, done, tell Old Steve Coll to be sure to read it, will you?

Norwegian Shooter

We should apply friendly but firm persuasion to prod our allies/clients in the Gulf oil monarchies to hold elections and accept gender equality.

Until then, using military force in AfPak, supposedly to promote democracy and improve the status of women, just serves to tell the locals that we think that they are fools who can be duped by hypocrites.

None of the strategies stated here will work in Afghanistan unless there is an honest and concerted effort by all the parties involved in Afghanistan to call for a truth and reconciliation commission of some sort.

Cole: "The Afghan Taliban are essentially inseparable from the Pakistani Taliban"

NAF colleague and AfPak blogger Peter Bergen also seems to believe this. But where is the evidence? Nothing in what they've written. Coll recently hyped a new book, "Decoding the New Taliban" Is there anything in there that backs this statement up?

More good news: Afghanistan is #2! The second most corrupt country on the planet, that is.

. . . Sarah Palin clarifies everything: Giving McChrystal all he's asked for, good; 'dithering,' bad.

Dithering's looking better everyday.

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