Hawks continue to dream of an Afghanistan that does not exist, that has never existed, and that for all we know will never exist. Michael Gerson, writing at the Washington Post, reveals that he’s one of them:
The United States eventually needs a capable, nonradical government in Afghanistan that controls as much of its own territory as possible. This will not be achieved by bombing the hell out of the Taliban alone. It will also not be achieved without bombing the hell out of the Taliban, because it has no current incentive to come to the peace table.
If you throw out the qualifiers and weasel words, e.g. “eventually”, “as possible”, there isn’t much left there. In Afghanistan “the Taliban” isn’t a cohesive identifiable group. It’s Afghan religious conservatives who are willing to take up arms. You can be Taliban this week and not the next. They don’t have large military bases, lots of military collateral, or massed forces. They will be in Afghanistan next week, next month, and next year. Will we?
There will never be a “capable, nonradical government in Afghanistan” as long as government is looked at as a device for enriching yourself, your friends, and your family which is pretty much the way it’s always been.
Additionally, no imaginable Afghan government will ever have the resources to control its own territory. The numbers just don’t add up. It will be lucky if it can control Kabul and its environs.
Rather than dreaming of some fantasy Afghanistan, it might be helpful to consider what achievable objectives we have in Afghanistan, what is needed to accomplish them, and do that instead.
