The government of Afghanistan cannot survive without international military backing and the problem, which even the International Crisis Group (ICG) concedes, is that it is currently offering negotiations from a position of weakness. Now that is a terrible indictment of the international community and the US government in particular. Having ousted the Taliban at the end of 2001, President Bush actively opposed expanding Isaf or involving US forces in nation-building. Both policies were subsequently reversed, but only after the seeds of the current insurgency had been sown. The number of international troops in Afghanistan has scaled up rapidly in the last few years. I think that these should be increased further. The whole country needs to be secured and it was the failure to do this from the beginning that created the conditions for the Taliban's subsequent rise.
The government of Afghanistan cannot survive without international military backing and the problem, which even the International Crisis Group (ICG) concedes, is that it is currently offering negotiations from a position of weakness. Now that is a terrible indictment of the international community and the US government in particular. Having ousted the Taliban at the end of 2001, President Bush actively opposed expanding Isaf or involving US forces in nation-building. Both policies were subsequently reversed, but only after the seeds of the current insurgency had been sown.
ReplyDeleteThe number of international troops in Afghanistan has scaled up rapidly in the last few years. I think that these should be increased further. The whole country needs to be secured and it was the failure to do this from the beginning that created the conditions for the Taliban's subsequent rise.