What Lies Next For Afghanistan

President Barack Obama has just announced his plans to dispatch 30,000 more US troops to Afghanistan, and not a moment too soon. Many Americans are divided and skeptical over the consequences and necessity of committing more forces to Afghanistan, and whether the troop surge strategy will be as success as it has been in Iraq. Obama’s plan calls for sending 30,000 more soldiers to Afghanistan to bolster beleaguered troops there, while setting July 2011 as a deadline for withdrawing troops from the region. The surge aims to prepare the Afghans for self-sufficiency, empowering them to be capable of defending themselves from al-Qaeda and the Taliban; 5,000 of the 30,000 soldiers to be sent are going to be assigned to training Afghan military forces.

Afghanistan stands to be one of the most crucial issues Obama will decide on in his presidency. It was the first nation we focused our energies on after the 9/11 attacks, since Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda were largely situated there, with the aid of the Taliban. After early military action by the United States greatly weakened the stranglehold of Taliban rule, Afghanistan has made some progress in becoming a stable democratic country, but still struggles in countless respects. It is still horrifically impoverished and dependent on foreign aid, it generates much of its GDP from poppy growth used to make opium and heroin, corrupt officials inhabit numerous levels of its government, and the Taliban still exist and pose a formidable threat to the Afghan people. Conventional wisdom holds that bin Laden continues to hide somewhere along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, so Obama has a number of important reasons to make Afghanistan a priority on his agenda. This is especially true because he campaigned on a platform that laid Afghanistan as the center of America’s ongoing War on Terror. At stake are bin Laden, the stability of Afghanistan and its people, and the whole War on Terror that has been raging on since 9/11.

Although Obama’s choice to continue the fight in Afghanistan and increase the American presence there follows the promises he made in his campaign and is the logical decision, considering the importance of Afghanistan in American foreign policy, Obama’s strategy is in a dubious position, and it remains to be seen if it will produce the desired results. So far, the chances of victory appear slim; while the Taliban are not likely to succeed in completely reconquering Afghanistan, the United States and its NATO allies that are handling missions in Afghanistan have an equally low probability of bringing significant positive change, due to Afghanistan’s history of resisting foreign intervention and the enormous challenges that persist within the nation, not the least of which is a weak and largely unreliable central government. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, Great Britain, the USSR, and a number of other nations all launched invasions to subjugate Afghanistan, but all of these campaigns failed to maintain any sort of outside dominance, due mostly to the harsh desert environment of the country, and fierce resistance to foreign control. This is most clearly shown in the Taliban’s war against the USSR during the 80’s and the reputation it gave them among Afghans as liberators, facilitating their rise to power.

History is already not on the side of the US, and unfortunately, neither are current American military logistics. The US has long relied on Afghanistan’s neighbor Pakistan as a central ally in ferreting out and capturing and eliminating terrorists, but it’s still not clear whose side Pakistan is really on. Pakistan is an undemocratic and unruly country itself, with coups occurring every several years, huge religious conflicts, extensive terror networks operating within the nation, and autocratic leaders like former President Pervez Musharraf. The US and Pakistan have had disagreements over the years concerning Pakistan’s lack of searching and combating of terrorists on its own soil, and Pakistan has an inconsistent track record when it comes to being useful in the fight against terrorism. In any case, 68,000 American soldiers and additional NATO forces are already stretched thin across Afghanistan, so the best option for Obama is to move as quickly as possible and accomplish his goals in Afghanistan with all possible speed. In this way, Obama can reduce the amount of time, money and causalities in Afghanistan.

Although he is definitely unwilling to admit it, Obama’s strategy is somewhat similar to George Bush’s policy of using military force to completely defeat the Taliban, and is necessary and appropriate for the current situation in Afghanistan. Obama realizes that he must apply more pressure on the Taliban by relying on more troops and reaching out to Pakistan for more support. While both Republicans and Democrats have already voiced criticism about Obama’s choice, this is unfortunately the best option Obama currently has available. If Obama wants to improve Afghanistan so that it is able to govern itself safely and effectively, he must emphasize a massive overhaul the Afghan government to clean up corruption, get rid of the drug trade, warlords, and deep-seated social problems that span across the country. By resolving these problems, America would give Afghans more reason to commit to their own nation’s productivity and safety, helping them to escape from the rut that Taliban control has left them in for years.

(Derek Sun.)