Escaping the Afghan Quagmire

In his campaign, Obama pointed out that instead of finishing the job in Afghanistan, the actual origin of 9/11, we had squandered resources, lives, and reputation on an unnecessary war in Iraq. He proposed to remedy this mistake by moving as fast as possible to get out of Iraq while inserting another 30,000 troops into [...]

Afghanistan: More or Less?

There has been a great deal of discussion lately of the stated intention of the new administration to significantly increase the number of troops in Afghanistan. When we invaded Afghanistan, I wrote that we should use several hundred thousand troops as part of a major attempt to transform the country. I was thinking of what [...]

Iranian Access Routes into Afghanistan

In a recent item in the NYT (December 31), there was extensive discussion of the need for alternative supply routes into Afghanistan for both military and development assistance. The Khyber pass may simply become too exposed to use successfully.

Although a quick look at the map would suggest that transit through Iran is the obvious [...]

Balancing Military and Nonmilitary Actions in Afghanistan

We certainly need a rethinking of foreign and military policy that places more emphasis on the nonmilitary tools of policy (“A Handpicked Obama Team for a Sweeping Foreign Policy Shift” [NYT, Dec 1]. But the changes need to be carefully calibrated in terms of the facts on the ground in each situation rather than thoughtlessly [...]

Torture as American Policy

Seymour Hersh has long been the conscience of America’s foreign and military policy. It has not earned him much credit with our military. Nor is his reporting always above reproach. But he has played a necessary, perhaps ever more necessary role.

In the June 25 New Yorker, Hersh zeroes in on the efforts of General Taguba [...]

Counterinsurgency and Airplanes

We hear once again of a “mistake” in Afghanistan. In the midst of a battle against the Taliban in an Afghan village, planes were called in. They destroyed the target. Unfortunately, there were children in the target. This has happened again and again in Afghanistan. It happens frequently in Iraq. The American or NATO troops [...]

Defending Honor, Distrusting Charity

Two news items in the last few days have a deep psychological connection. The first tells of a Dutch force in Afghanistan in one of its most dangerous provinces that is trying to win the struggle with the Taliban by concentrating almost entirely on reconstruction projects. They are armed men, but their strategy is to use arms [...]

Afghanistan: Less is More

Rory Stewart, who works out of Kabul, is presently a guest Op-Ed writer for the New York Times. He has been making a concerted effort to tell us, and the West, to “back off”in Afghanistan. This is very counter-intuitive for me. I was one of those who counseled when we went to Afghanistan after 9/11 [...]

Afghan Democracy

In a recent Op-Ed, Rory Stewart who runs the Turquoise Mountain Foundation in Kabul and has been much involved In Afghan and Iraq affairs lashes out at what he sees as the foolishness and pretension involved in our project to make Afghnaistan into a fully functioning democracy in the next few years. He claims that [...]

Afghanistan: Our First Responsibility

In the January/February Foreign Affairs Barnett Rubin has summarized in excellent and disheartening detail the problems we face in attempting to stabilize Afghanistan. He asserts that we have not lost yet, but the country is still ours to lose. The importance of winning goes beyond both the welfare of the Afghan people and the [...]