As of August 27th:
“A civilian surge is also needed, to help Afghanistan build a government worth voting for. If the fortune spent allowing Afghanistan to hold this election has helped highlight that need, it may not have been totally wasted.”
“Taking even the rosiest view, the war in Afghanistan is likely to get more expensive, and worse, before it gets better. The mini-surge this year to enable the election to take place in most of the country will probably be followed by another to try to contain the growing insurgency.”
Better? But what’s the strategy? Karzai’s government has corruption problems. And with such a lack of infrastructure, political unity (especially in the more tribal south), education etc. the lures of corruption seem to be far from counter-balanced and stabilized.
Seth G Jones wrote a book and discusses it here (we pulled resources out of Afghanistan to fight Iraq at a crucial time, we have been trying to build a democracy with the budget of counter-insurgency): In The Graveyard Of Empires
American and British support is still on the wane. Wikipedia has a roundup here.
See Also On This Site: From Commonweal: Andrew Bacevich “The War We Can’t Win: Afghanistan And The Limits Of American Power” From CSIS-Anthony Cordesman On “The Afghanistan Campaign: Can We Win?” Dexter Filkins Book On Afghanistan And Iraq: “The Forever War”
