It looks like the Taliban are starting to really get their feet under themselves again in tribal Pakistan. We don't have the political clout needed to root them out of there, and Pakistan doesn't have the physical clout needed. This looks uncomfortably like a repeat of Vietnam in the making now; a year ago, I would not have said that, as we were driving the Taliban in front of us like leaves in the wind.
Up to now, the administration has clearly considered the aggravation of dealing with Taliban raids to be the lesser of two evils, with the other choice being striking across the border into Pakistan. So my question is: at what point would that change? Is this a not-even-close issue (i.e., these attacks would have to get much more serious before we'll consider openly crossing the Paki border), or is this a decision we're currently making by a hair's breadth?
My take: it's a closer call than either us or Musharraf's administration are admitting in public, but we aren't ready to start anything to draw significant attention back to that theater. Our resources are already committed to toppling the Iraqi regime and the Karzai administration needs all the time it can get with the world's attention captured elsewhere; it's impossible to set up an effective government under the microscope of daily international nitpicking.
My humble suggestion: once the Special Forces are done in Iraq, if the Taliban are still a problem, move the SOF back to Afghanistan and convert them back to the role and mode that made them so successful in the opening stages in Afghanistan (in other words, let them take their uniforms off and grow their beards out again so they look less alien, don't saddle them with all the bureaucratic image-management regulations we've slapped on them in the last few months, and let them do their job, even if it makes us look bad at times).
--Phoenix Rising |