The President has been taking a lot of time making up his mind about what to do about the level of troop deployment in Afghanistan. His leading general tells him he needs 40,000 more people to make progress, and by progress he means securing the villages from attack, not wiping out the opposition. Others close to the President, so the leaks/rumors have it, are telling him to send 20,000 guys and just blow the hell out of anything that moves.
The recent elections were a farce and it revealed the true face of the current Afghan leadership, which is to say their isn't any, at least in the democratic sense. Karzai looks like he tried to steal the election, and it's been well publicized that Karzai's own brother is a crook, and apparently on the take from the CIA as well. Not a really good endorsement of our efforts so far, wouldn't you say?
So, here's my two bits on the topic. I think Obama is stalling because he wants to see if Karzai can get his shit together. If he can't, Obama is going to pull the plug on the whole mess and walk away, saying "we did what we could", to the extent that the coalition will let him/us get away with it. I think that would just be fine, though Hillary would cough up a hairball.
Not a bad solution, since Al Qaeda and Bin Laden are well holed up in Pakistan, not Afghanistan anymore, and the Pakis have their own problems that ultimately are more far reaching than their own region -- I'm talking about their stockpile of nukes, which a whole bunch of terrorists would love to get their hands on.
I hope the CIA has done their homework on that one. Oh, and did I mention the mess in Iran?
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