Along the same lines as the last post, let me recommend Ralph Peters' article today in the New York Post, Obama's real Afghanistan options. Ralph Peters, as I have noted before, is a well-known and well-respected military writer, with a pretty non-partisan approach to things. He lays out President Obama's three options - surge with more troops (General McChrystal's plan), narrow the scope to destroying al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan (vice-President Biden's plan), or waffle with a split-the-difference troop increase that may be the most politically palatable, but doesn't accomplish either objective.
In fact, there is very, very little chance that we can successfully "nation build" a stable democracy in Afghanistan, a territory ruled for thousands of years by tribal leaders and warlords, and in no way culturally prepared for anything like a strong central government - democratic or otherwise. Those who still believe we can make a democratic nation in Afghanistan are, I think, naive in the extreme, whether they are Republicans or Democrats. There is also a vanishingly small chance that we can "buy" an effective Afghan national army or police force with our billions -- effective in the sense that they can take over from our military.
Those realities ought to be central to any decisions the administration makes about Afghanistan. The Bush administration was unable to see or accept those realities, and it looks to me like the Obama administration may be just as naive in this area.
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