Time to Deal in Afghanistan

Time to Deal in Afghanistan – Fareed Zakaria, Washington Post opinion.

It is time to get real about Afghanistan. Withdrawal is not a serious option. The United States, NATO, the European Union and others have invested massively in stabilizing that country over the past eight years, and they should not abandon it because the Taliban is proving a tougher foe than anticipated. But there is still a large gap between the goals the Obama administration is outlining and the means available to achieve them. This gap is best closed not by sending in tens of thousands of more troops but, rather, by understanding the limits of what we can reasonably achieve in Afghanistan.

The most important reality of the post-Sept. 11 world has been the lack of any major follow-up attack. That’s largely because al-Qaeda has been on the run in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The campaign against terrorist groups in both countries rests on ground forces and intelligence. A senior US military official involved in planning these campaigns told me that America’s presence in Afghanistan has been the critical element in the successful strikes against al-Qaeda leaders and camps. Were America to leave the scene, all the region’s players would start jockeying for influence over Afghanistan. That would almost certainly mean the revival of the poisonous alliance between the Pakistani military and the hardest-line elements of the Taliban…

More at The Washington Post.