Why Afghanistan Matters for the U.S.
Why Afghanistan Matters for the U.S. by James B. Cunningham and Ryan Crocker, CNN
We arrived in Kabul in the summer of 2011 to assume the leadership of the American Embassy. The U.S. military surge had been completed and was beginning to reverse from its peak of some 100,000 troops. The U.S. civilian surge had peaked, with more than 1,200 American diplomats, civil servants and contractors throughout the country, working under difficult and dangerous conditions, to help the Afghan people rebuild their country.
We were tasked, along with our incredible military partners, to implement a strategy that would transition responsibility for security to Afghan hands — where it belongs — to create an international structure of military and development support based on U.S. leadership, to negotiate and implement a Strategic Partnership with Afghanistan, to help Afghans build the capacity to provide a better and more promising life, and to help Afghans achieve the first democratic political transition from one president to another in Afghanistan's history. All of this while denying the terrorist Taliban insurgency, who enjoy safe haven in Pakistan, the ability to recoup its losses in Afghanistan and to threaten the government itself. Four years later, that strategy is bearing fruit and many of those goals have been achieved in whole or in part.
But there have also been serious setbacks and disappointments, and many challenges remain…
