The Great Game, another loss

[spmetla]

I think that the General isn't quite off the rocker as he seems to be. He's very right in that a 'decisive victory' can't be achieved against the Taliban in Afghanistan. A decisive victory is rarely had against guerrilla forces. If the full cooperation of Pakistan was to be had against the Taliban in their country then perhaps a decisive victory could be achieved but I doubt it could happen without their help.

Having said that I also want to point out that the war in Afghanistan is not lost, though by no means are ISAF winning either. The majority of urban areas are under government control and most of the northern rural areas as well. The current situation is fairly similar to that of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

The current situation is due to the mismanagement of the war in the past and as noted early the lack of personnel assigned to OEF. The Iraq war can definitely be blamed for siphoning off talent, manpower, and funding away from Afghanistan but a large part of the blame is probably to do with the desire to fight the war on the cheap under Rumsfeld's hand. Remember that the number of troops in Afghanistan has always been a small amount and that the early success was primarily due to the buying off of warlords and providing air power and secret squirrel guys to the opponents of the Taliban.

Perhaps as armchair generals we could debate whether a large influx of soldiers early on would have been helpful. No doubt though we would still have seen a gradual erosion of the local power we were wielding as warlords switched sides in refusal to submit to the Afghan government. That and Pakistan would probably have been a haven for the Taliban then as it is now.

Very simply this is a war without a real plan for winning, the General's suggestion to focus on bringing the insurgency down to a level manageable for the Afghan military and government to keep in check and hopefully defeat is probably the definition of success that most people have and had for Afghanistan. More troops are needed too so that more of the country can be denied to the Taliban and more reconstruction is needed as well. Unfortunately reconstruction is at a slow pace and underfunded, and the lack of security denies Afghanistan from any significant outside investment.

@Koga No Goshi: How can you say we brought the present Iranian regime into power? Last I checked the present regime are the ones that ousted 'our' Iranians. I'll agree if you meant that our support for the Shah created conditions ripe for revolution but that does not equal us bringing them into power. I'd say the current regime really came into power after Saddam invaded Iran when they were able to successfully bring all of Iran together against Iraq.