TW: The next POTUS will have his hands full. Afghanistan will be right up there. Things are challenging just as they have been been for the past 7 years. What next? The Taliban are getting stronger not weaker by most accounts. Our allies, which in Afghanistan unlike Iraq have provided significant support throughout the campaign, are increasingly wary of committing more forces and are in fact likely to reduce their forces. The Taliban and their Al-Qaeda friends use the ungoverned frontier with Pakistan as a playground.
Suggestions include: a surge akin to the Iraq surge, negotiations with the more moderate elements of the Taliban, and/or massive build-out of Afghani internal security forces. We have big decisions to make over the next several months...
From the Economist:
"THE Taliban have been brave and brazen this fighting season. They have used more “asymmetric” tactics, such as suicide bombings, but have not shied away from direct combat...Taliban are getting stronger and areas once deemed safe are under threat. Provinces around Kabul are more violent and roads leading out of the capital are frequently cut off...the Bush administration has begun a wholesale reassessment of its mission in Afghanistan...
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12437731
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