The Afghan Challenge

I responded to a post by the Postmodern Conservative's James Poulos over at the New Atlanticist regarding George Will's recent column that essentially called on America to head out of Afghanistan.

 

This is obviously a huge issue for Obama as this has now become "his war."  That said, I do think there are strong reasons for remaining engaged as outlined below, 

 

“The Afghanistan conundrum revolves around what our goals really are and whether Washington has any hope of achieving them within the politically feasible timeline imposed by domestic discontent and fears over domestic issues, most notably the economy.

I do think that a precipitous withdrawal would be highly destabilizing for the region. It is common knowedge that the porous borderlands of Afghanistan and Pakistan(the Federally Administed Tribal Areas and those bordering Baluchistan) are a core area of concern for resurgent neo-Taliban and al-Qaeda affiliated groups.
 
I am concerned that Mr. Will is too sanguine about the prospects of “remote control war” to keep those elements from recontituting a threat to the American homeland. The only way to keep a lid on this threat is to constantly keep those elements off guard and unable to find the relative comfort and leisure to plan for operations external to the region.
I fear the only way to do this is to ensure that most Afghans maintain a hostility to the neo-Taliban and the foreign elements represented by al-Qaeda. This requires boots on the ground and the ability to maintain a reasonable degree of safety for normal Afghans so that they will not feel compelled to cut deals or acquiese to those elements that are inimical to our interests.
 
Additionally, I would point out that natural gas pipelines and economic interests are not absent from the equation either. Afghanistan could represent a not insignificant piece of the global energy puzzle with proposed pipelines like the Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline (though its still a long ways off from even having construction started).
 
For better and worse, energy is still a very necessary and relevant issue.”

Posted by Greg R Lawson at 12/15/2011 4:44 PM
Categories: Afghanistan WarOnTerror Taliban alQaeda
Tags: Afghanistan WarOnTerror Taliban alQaeda
 

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