The Afghan Jihad Is The Reason For The World's Salvation And Especially The Islamic World

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious and the Most Merciful.

Allah Almighty creates a reason for everything, whether for the existence or continuation of something or for its non-existence or disappearance. The Almighty is He who causes effects. When He wants to bring something into existence or remove it, He appoints a cause or causes for that.

Two decades ago, the world witnessed, with the permission of Allah SwT; the world, and most especially the Islamic peoples, the salvation of the world from the great evil; the evil of the Soviets, who wanted to spread their control over the earth. To achieve this goal they attacked a country which had been crowned more than once with the medal of heroism in breaking tyrants, conquering the haughty and expelling evil transgressors. Their doom was sealed when they chose to attack this country.

To wit, they destroyed themselves! Yes, this great event confused the entire world which did not expect this occurrence, because this country did not have to its credit great discoveries, inventions and technologies. Yet, Allah SwT willed to make the sacrifices of this proud and zealous people the cause for the liberation of dozens of countries occupied by that tyrant. Additionally, it became a cause for removing their occupation of other Muslim lands, especially those countries neighboring Afghanistan. More important than all of this is that America – which has committed the same crime as the Soviets against this proud and zealous people – was itself saved by virtue of the Jihad of the Afghans – from those misfortunes which were expected to befall it – as if Allah SwT desired for those misfortunes to later befall it at the hands of the Afghans themselves and they therefore decided to stand by the side of Afghan Muslims, not because they loved the Afghans and the Muslims or because they wished them well. Rather, they sought after their own self-interest. It was therefore reasonable for the world to thank the Afghans.

Yet, unfortunately, they were ungrateful for the favor with an ingratitude that never occurs to anyone’s mind! After the defeat of the Russians, who left dragging their tails in shame and failure, some of those countries, which Allah had fated to continue to exist by virtue of the Jihad of the Afghans, toyed with the accomplishments of that great people. Indeed, they had a main role in creating problems and afflictions never before witnessed in the history of the country.

Today, the same tragedy is being replayed, but at the hands of another tyrant. Shaytan has enticed this (tyrant) into attacking that people who were the reason he still existed on the face of the earth, forgetting that favor that deserved thanks and a good turn; and not ingratitude and ungraciousness. Indeed, Allah SwT has here ordained the same fate He ordained for the Soviet attack on Afghanistan, which is the salvation of the world and especially the Islamic world from the grip of a tyrannical transgressor.

America wanted, as did its contemporary Soviet Union, to extend its control effectively over the entire world, and re-make it in its own image. Its wealth and its power seduced it into dreaming this dream but achieving this disgraceful dream was completely unreasonable – it is a morass from which it will be happy to escape half alive! Thus, we see today that America has retreated from all its goals - and more - for the sake of which it plunged into the unjust war, the certitude of which was a matter on which no two disagreed! Neither has it been able to take hold of the matter they thought they had a grip on from one day to the next, nor to obtain a guarantee for the security of its people! Rather their terror increases day after day and now it (America) wants to retain its self-respect and nothing more – and this is its great victory, but will it be able to do even that? They are like one who has attacked a person unjustly. When that person grabs them and shakes them, they say to him: “leave me alone and I will leave you alone!”

It is impossible for it now to be seduced by its dream of arrogance, aggrandizement and tyranny, or to spread its influence in the lands of others, or extend its control there. Rather its most pressing concern is to preserve what its forefathers gained!

Because of this the entire world and especially the Islamic world is indebted to the Afghan Jihad. Because of this Jihad, the snake has become preoccupied with itself rather than thinking about swallowing them. When Afghanistan has become a thorn in its throat it cannot advance and cannot return back!

The world has been saved from American aggression and barbarism in all fields: political, economic and security. America had wanted to spread its influence in Eurasia, half of which includes the Islamic countries, then extend their political and economic control over them, and take their affairs firmly in hand. If they were able to do that, then no one on the other continents could stand and face them. But Allah desired other than what America desired. If they had been able – Allah forbid – to realize their initial goals then subsequently it would have been very easy to swallow and digest the Islamic world. This was a turn of events for which it waited impatiently and for which sake it spared no expense. But through the grace of Allah first and then through the sacrifices of that proud and zealous people, it was not able to realize its dream. Rather, the entire Islamic Ummah was saved from those plots which those iniquitous hands wove in the world of fantasy.

Among the most prominent gains made by the Afghan Jihad for the Islamic Ummah which can be indicated here is the protection of the Holy Quran from fire and abuse, four months ago at the hands of a lunatic American: that vile minister who intended to burn a copy of the Glorious Quran in revenge for the events of September 11. Yes, what happened there with that idiotic man was not personal or unique to him, rather it was the voice of many of them and evidence was that they did not refrain from committing that crime out of respect for the sacred things of others or for human dignity! Rather, it was to preserve their bravado and prestige by protecting the lives of their soldiers deployed on the field of battle and to be precise; to avoid receiving the combat strikes of the Mujahideen of the Islamic Emirate! Which they were certain to receive if they did not take that crazy man into their foolish hands! The commander in chief of the NATO Alliance, David Petraeus and others warned of the consequences of that action and stated that it would cause calamities for their soldiers present in Afghanistan. The lunatic minister therefore had to reconsider his plan and back down. He in his turn was more concerned with the defeat of his co-religionists and kinsmen, than in venting his anger against Muslims by burning the Noble Quran as if he considered – if the expression is apt – that the cost of this heinous act would outweigh its benefit. Here we must draw attention to certain points:

1. There are no doubt in the Islamic Ummah has many ideological, political and religious parties; and there are undoubtedly in Islamic countries (many) regimes that rule them – and there are more than 50 governments! But neither America or NATO or its commander in chief were troubled and they did not say that (these) regimes and rulers of Islamic countries or their varied and diverse parties and movements would cause problems for America or weaken it if that great crime were committed! For one reason: they had cast Jihad behind their backs!

2. Then why do the Americans fear the Mujahideen? What that commander stated means that those different parties and diverse movements in their great number and those governments armed to the teeth with even nuclear weapons(!) did not and will not be considered to constitute a threat to them! There is therefore no need to warn against them! As if they understood well that the Mujahideen were those who would avenge their sacred things. This is a matter that truly conforms to reality and fact. This is the reason behind infidel attacks launched against Jihad and its people over the course of time in all corners of the earth and in all rounds they struggle, and especially in this modern era. They are convinced that Jihad is the apex of the pinnacle of Islam, as was said by that leader of the Mujahideen, Muhammad ibn Abdullah (SAW). Meaning Islam is protected by Jihad only! The enemy is therefore terrified of Jihad and the Mujahideen, and tries with all the capabilities he possesses to mar the image of Jihad and the Mujahideen one way or another.

3. The commander’s statement that the burning of the Noble Quran would cause problems for his soldiers in Afghanistan only(!) - although Jihad continues through the grace of Allah SwT in other countries as well – indicates that the occupiers have learned through living in the hills and rugged mountains of Afghanistan over the past nine years; the message that the soldiers of the Islamic Emirate are at the forefront of the legacy of Islam, they are its most honorable and worthy men in the modern age. They are therefore careful of them, and try to deceive them with great deceptions and lay traps for them by other methods. Even though the Emirate does not posses the means and weapons of terror and fright, and weapons that would penetrate to the hearts of the enemy, Allah has placed terror in their hearts; terror because the Mujahideen follow in the steps of the Sayyid al-Mursaleen, (SAW) who said, as narrated by Bukhari in his Sahih:

“I had been given five things which were not given to anyone else before me. Allah made me victorious through awe for the distance of one month’s journey...”.

Today the world witnesses with its own eyes the truth of this Hadith as a palpable reality. America with all the armies and technology in its possession is frightened of a small group that cannot be compare with it in terms of means and equipment in any field or situation!

4. The thinking of the occupiers has changed towards the Emirate. They used to assume that officials and leadership of the Emirate took matters simply and naively, and they were merely seekers of religious knowledge, knowing nothing or very little of the politics of the world. It was therefore easy to dupe or play with them! But now, after tasting the bitterness of the war into which they plunged unjustly and aggressively, and after adopting a policy of shock and awe more than once, they understand that those of whom they thought so little are men! These men have stood in their face as an impassable barrier when those who thought they were brave and heroic surrendered. They were singing the praises of our Lord when all tongues were praising America.

In sum, the entire world, but especially the Islamic world and the countries neighboring Afghanistan, must thank Afghanistan for this great and historic accomplishment in helping them strike an enemy which was harming them more than it was harming the Islamic Emirate, and for extending to them aid in establishing an Islamic regime. Because establishing a strong Islamic regime in Afghanistan is to the interest of all. If Afghanistan is the bridge joining the world’s economy to Central Asia, and is indisputably the heart of Asia, then the well-being of the body (depends upon) the well-being of the heart. While the heart is sound, the body enjoys rest and ease. When the heart is fretful and disturbed, then undoubtedly the rest of the parts of the body does not enjoy tranquility and ease.

To conclude, it is worth pointing out that the peoples of the Islamic Ummah played an important role in the past Jihad of the Afghans, and that is still the case today. For this they must undoubtedly be thanked.

Translated From The Islamic Emirate Of Afghanistan: Al-Somood Magazine Issue #56

Taliban Can Fight Forever & Kissinger Protege calls for Afghan Partition

Additionally, the intellectual establishment is starting a new call for Partition of Southern Afghanistan and the rest of the country. This would surely set the stage for a proxy war and less U.S./NATO "boots on the ground" while also allowing Americans to accepts permanent bases akin to the proposition of Senator Lindsey Graham. The following article is from Robert Blackwilll, U.S. Ambassador to India in 2001-3 and as Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Planning in 2003-4. Certainly, this proposal which he terms Plan 'B' would foil pipeline plans and so is only a political ploy. If carried out it would surley lure regional powers into the arena and set off the sparks for World War III as China and Pakistan increase relations and India and the U.S. counter.  However, it is an interesting acceptance of defeat from an enemy most familiar with the area. This is published in the latest edition of Foreign Affairs magazine,the intellectual mouthpiece of the Council of Foreign Relations.

Why a De Facto Partition Is the Least Bad Option

Current U.S. policy toward Afghanistan involves spending scores of billions of dollars and suffering several hundred allied deaths annually to prevent the Afghan Taliban from controlling the Afghan Pashtun homeland -- with little end in sight. Those who ask for more time for the existing strategy to succeed often fail to spell out what they think the odds are that it will work in the next few years, what amount of casualties and resources they think the attempt is worth, and why. That calculus suggests that it is time to shift to Plan B.

The United States and its allies are not on course to defeating the Taliban militarily. There are now about 150,000 U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) troops in Afghanistan. This is 30,000 more troops than the Soviet Union deployed in the 1980s, but less than half the number required to have some chance of pacifying the country, according to standard counterinsurgency doctrine.

Nor, with an occupying army largely ignorant of local history, tribal structures, languages, customs, politics, and values, will the alliance win over large numbers of the Afghan Pashtuns, as counterinsurgency doctrine demands. In Sebastian Junger's phrase, the United States will not capture the "human terrain" of southern and eastern Afghanistan. In November, Afghan President Hamid Karzai told The Washington Post that he wanted U.S. troops off the roads and out of Afghan homes and that the long-term presence of so many foreign soldiers would only worsen the war. "The time has come to reduce military operations," Karzai said. "The time has come to reduce the presence of, you know, boots in Afghanistan… to reduce the intrusiveness into the daily Afghan life." Such attitudes are common -- and profoundly inconsistent with the counterinsurgency strategy of deploying soldiers in local communities.

The quality of governance emanating from Karzai's deeply corrupt government will not significantly improve, and without a comprehensive reform of the Afghan government, U.S. success is virtually impossible. As the counterinsurgency expert David Kilcullen stresses, "You are only as good as the government you are supporting." In that context, Dexter Filkins noted in The New York Times that "Afghanistan is now widely recognized as one of the world's premier gangster-states. Out of 180 countries, Transparency International ranks it, in terms of corruption, 179th, better only than Somalia."

The Afghan National Army will not be ready to hold its own with the Taliban or take over major combat missions from ISAF in southern and eastern Afghanistan in any realistic time frame. According to The Economist, "Less than 3% of recruits are from the troublesome Pushtun south, from where the Taliban draw most support. Few will sign up, fearing ruthless intimidation against government 'collaborators' and their families. As a result, northern officers who only speak Dari have to use translators when in the Pushtu-speaking south. Northern infantry are reluctant to go there at all." U.S. Marine Corps General James Conway told the press last August that the Afghan National Army would not be ready to take over security from U.S. troops in Afghanistan's Helmand and Kandahar Provinces for several years because of conditions on the ground.

The Pakistani military, driven by its perception of India as the enemy and its perceived requirement for strategic depth, will not end its support for and provision of sanctuary to its longtime Afghan Taliban proxies or accept a truly independent Afghanistan.

And public opinion in the United States and other allied countries, finally, is unlikely to permit the extension of the intervention for the length of time counterinsurgency doctrine says is required for success.

With all these individual elements of the United States' existing Afghanistan policy in serious trouble, optimism about the current strategy's ability to meet its objectives reminds one of the White Queen's comment in Through the Looking Glass: "Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. "The time has come, therefore, to switch to the least bad alternative -- acceptance of a de facto partition of the country.

U.S. President Barack Obama's repeated statements that the United States will be starting to end its combat role in Afghanistan soon have weakened U.S. diplomatic strength throughout the region. The administration should stop talking about exit strategies and instead commit the United States to a long-term combat role in Afghanistan of 35,000-50,000 troops.

At the same time, however, Washington should accept that the Taliban will inevitably control most of the Pashtun south and east and that the price of forestalling that outcome is far too high for the United States to continue paying. To be sure, the administration should not invite the Taliban to dominate the Afghan Pashtun homeland, nor explicitly seek to break up Afghanistan. Rather, the United States and its partners should simply stop dying in the south and the east and let the local "correlation of forces" there take its course -- while deploying U.S. air power and Special Forces for the foreseeable future in support of the Afghan army and the government in Kabul, to ensure that the north and west of Afghanistan do not succumb to the Taliban as well.

In short, President Obama should announce that the United States and its Afghan and foreign partners will pursue a comprehensive counter-terrorism strategy in Pashtun Afghanistan and a nation-building strategy in the rest of the country, committing to both policies for at least the next seven to ten years. Reluctantly accepting such a de facto partition would be a profoundly disappointing outcome to the United States' ten-year Afghan investment. But regrettably, it is now the best result that Washington can realistically and responsibly achieve.

WITHDRAW IN ORDER TO STAY

After so many years of faulty U.S. policy toward Afghanistan, there are no quick, easy, and cost-free ways to escape the current quagmire. Even with all its problems, a de facto partition offers the Obama administration the best available alternative to strategic defeat. Stressing that the United States will retain an active combat role in Afghanistan for years into the future and that it does not accept permanent Taliban control of the south, the United States and its allies would withdraw ground combat forces over several months from most of Pashtun Afghanistan, including Kandahar. ISAF would stop fighting in the mountains, valleys, and urban areas of southern and eastern Afghanistan (although it would continue to provide arms, aid, and intelligence to local tribal leaders there who want to resist). Washington would concentrate its efforts, meanwhile, on defending the areas in the north and west of Afghanistan not dominated by the Pashtuns, including Kabul.

The Afghan Taliban would be offered a modus vivendi in which each side agreed not to seek to enlarge the territory it controlled, so long as the Taliban stopped supporting terrorism -- a proposal that they would probably reject. The United States would make clear that it would strike against any al Qaeda targets anywhere, any Taliban encroachments across the de facto partition line, and any sanctuaries along the Pakistani border. No terrorist safe havens would be exempt from intensified U.S. attacks on either side of the Durand Line.

Washington would enlist Afghanistan's Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazaras, and supportive Pashtuns in this endeavor -- as well as its NATO allies, Afghanistan's various neighbors, and hopefully the United Nations Security Council. The allies would continue to accelerate the training of the Afghan army. They would devote nation-building efforts to groups in Afghanistan's north and west that are willing to accept help and are not systematically coerced by the Taliban. And the time might eventually come when a much stronger Afghan National Army might be able, with help, to retake the south and the east.

As the policy analyst John Chipman has pointed out, "A containment and deterrence approach would be a strategy that was limited to dealing with the threat as originally defined by the coalition forces that intervened in Afghanistan. … It would replace the impression that an eventual drawdown of combat forces from Afghanistan would constitute victory for the enemy, with the reality of a strategy that could be maintained for a longer period while meeting the principal security goal." In this respect, recent press reports that some U.S. forces will remain in Afghanistan until the end of 2014 are a welcome development.

Such a change in U.S. strategy would make clear to all that the United States, through its prolonged military presence in Afghanistan, intends to remain a power and influence in South and Central Asia for many years to come. It would dramatically reduce U.S. military casualties and thus minimize U.S. domestic political pressure for a hasty withdrawal. It would substantially lower U.S. expenditures on Afghanistan (now nearly $7 billion per month). It would increase the likelihood that NATO allies would continue their missions in Afghanistan over the long term. It would allow the U.S. Army and Marines to recover from years of fighting two ground wars. It would encourage most of Afghanistan's neighbors to support an acceptable stabilization of the country. It would reduce Islamabad's capacity to use the U.S. ground role in southern Afghanistan to extract tolerance from Washington regarding terrorism emanating from Pakistan. And it would allow the Obama administration to concentrate intensively on other important issues.

NO GOOD CHOICES

Accepting a de facto partition of Afghanistan has enough downsides that choosing it makes sense only if the other options available are even worse. They are.

One alternative, for example, would be to stay the counterinsurgency course in Afghanistan no matter how long it takes, and perhaps even expand the existing commitment. This course would not make sense because U.S. interests in Afghanistan are not high enough to justify such an investment. The United States now deploys about 100,000 troops in Afghanistan, yet according to the CIA, there are now only 50 to 100 al Qaeda fighters there. That is between 1,000 and 2,000 soldiers and perhaps a billion dollars per terrorist each year -- far beyond any reasonable expenditure of U.S. resources given the stakes involved. The original U.S. military objective in Afghanistan was to destroy al Qaeda, not to fight the Afghan Taliban, and that goal has largely been accomplished.

Another alternative would be for the United States to withdraw all its military forces from Afghanistan over the next year or two. But this course would lead to the rapid resumption of an all-out Afghan civil war and then to a probable conquest of the entire country by the Taliban. It would draw Afghanistan's neighbors into the fighting, destabilizing the region and further souring relations between New Delhi and Islamabad. It would raise the odds of the Islamic radicalization of Pakistan, which would in turn call into question the safety and security of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. It would weaken, if not rupture, the budding U.S.-Indian strategic partnership, undermine NATO's future, and trigger a global outpouring of support for jihadist ideology and increased terrorism against liberal societies more broadly. And it would be seen around the world by friends and adversaries alike as a failure of international leadership and strategic resolve by an ever-weaker United States, with destructive aftershocks for many years to come.

A third alternative would be to try to achieve stability in Afghanistan through negotiations with the Taliban. NATO could seek to entice the Afghan Taliban to stop fighting and enter into a coalition government in Kabul. As CIA Director Leon Panetta has said, however, so long as the Taliban think they are winning, they will remain intransigent: "We have seen no evidence that they are truly interested in reconciliation where they would surrender their arms, where they would denounce al-Qaeda, where they would really try to become part of that society. We have seen no evidence of that, and very frankly, my view is that, with regards to reconciliation, unless they're convinced the United States is going to win and that they are going to be defeated, I think it is very difficult to proceed with a reconciliation that is going to be meaningful." Despite the intensification of drone attacks, the United States cannot kill the Taliban into meaningful political compromise. As a senior Defense Department official told The Washington Post in late October, "The insurgency seems to be maintaining its resilience," adding that if there was a sign the momentum was shifting, he did not see it.

But what about the potential problems with the de facto partition option? If the Afghan Taliban were allowed to control the south and the east, would they not invite al Qaeda fighters back into the country and restore the pre-9/11 situation? Not necessarily. Last October, then National Security Adviser James Jones said that the U.S. government's maximum estimate was that al Qaeda had fewer than 100 members in Afghanistan, with no bases and "no ability to launch attacks on either [the United States] or [its] allies. "The Afghan Taliban may have learned their lesson about what happens when al Qaeda is allowed to run free.

If they did not, however, the United States could continue to attack al Qaeda targets on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border, applying deadly pressure in ways that were not available before 9/11. The sky over Pashtun Afghanistan would be filled with Predators targeting not only terrorist activities but also, if necessary, the new Afghan Taliban government in all its dimensions. Taliban civil officials (governors, mayors, police chiefs, judges, tax collectors, and the like) would wake up every morning not knowing if they would survive the day in their offices, during routine outside activities, or in their homes at night. There would be no mountain caves in which they could hide and at the same time do their jobs. This should produce some degree of deterrence. And even if many of the roughly 300 al Qaeda fighters now in Pakistan did move a few score miles north across the border, it would not make much practical difference -- surely not enough to justify an indefinite major ground war to prevent it.

What if the Afghan Taliban did not adhere to the rough boundaries of a de facto partition and sought to reconquer the entire country? They might well try, but they would be prevented from achieving their goal by the continued military might of ISAF and the growing capabilities of the Afghan National Army. Accepting a de facto partition would not lead to a civil war; such a conflict is already being fought. What partition would do is help stabilize the situation by making clear which side holds what territory.

What about the islands of non-Pashtun peoples in the south and the east, the women of those areas, and any Pashtun tribal forces that want to resist the Taliban -- would not this course abandon them? Unfortunately, the answer is essentially yes. But this would be a tragic consequence of local realities that are impossible for outsiders to change in any reasonable time frame and with justifiable amounts of blood and treasure sacrificed. The United States and its allies did not go to war in Afghanistan to protect all segments of the local population there from medieval brutality, and they should not take on that decades-long task now.

Might this course lead to the emergence of an irredentist Pashtunistan and undermine the stability of Pakistan? Managing Islamabad's reaction to a de facto partition would be a daunting challenge, because such a course would indeed stoke Pashtun separatism on both sides of the Durand Line. But the Pakistani military is already contributing to such problems through its cross-border support for the Afghan Taliban, so in truth Islamabad has little grounds for complaint. If anything, the emergence of a clear division in Afghanistan might provide just the sort of shock the Pakistani military apparently needs in order to appreciate the dangers of the game it has been playing for decades.

Would this course lead to a proxy war in Afghanistan between India and Pakistan or destabilize the region more generally? At this point, intensified competition between New Delhi and Islamabad in Afghanistan is probable no matter what policy the United States pursues. But so long as Washington maintains a long-term military commitment there, India will not put troops on the ground, and so the possibility of a major or direct conflict between India and Pakistan will be reduced.

China, Iran, Russia, and Afghanistan's Central Asian neighbors, meanwhile, all have their own interests and perspectives, and none of them currently supports a de facto partition. But none of them wants to see the reemergence of a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan either, and so as current U.S. policy proves unsustainable, they should be open to other ways of heading off that worst-case scenario. Their self-interest should therefore lead them to consider seriously a plan such as the one laid out here (although bringing them on board would require sustained and artful U.S. regional diplomacy, which is now absent).

DYING FOR A MISTAKE

Whatever their views on Afghanistan, many officials and pundits go analogy shopping to try to strengthen their cases, searching until they find ones that reinforce their preexisting policy inclinations. The truth, however, is that the differences between the current situation and other cases are so great that almost all such comparisons are unhelpful.

The analogy most commonly cited to justify the current Afghanistan strategy, for example, is the 2007 troop surge in Iraq, which is given credit for having created enough stability there to allow the United States to start withdrawing its troops while avoiding defeat. Yet as James Dobbins, former U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan, has pointed out, replicating the sort of wholesale shift in loyalties seen among former insurgents in Iraq would be exceedingly difficult in Afghanistan. By 2007, the Sunni Arab minority in Iraq had been decisively beaten by the majority Shiite militias, and it was only after this defeat that the Sunni Arabs turned to U.S. forces for protection. The Taliban insurgency, in contrast, is rooted in Afghanistan's largest ethnic group, not its smallest.

These Pashtun insurgents, furthermore, have been winning their civil war for the last several years, not losing it. In Iraq, by 2007, al Qaeda had made itself unwelcome among its Sunni Arab allies through its indiscriminate violence and abusive behavior. In Afghanistan, al Qaeda is hardly present and certainly presents no comparable threat to the insurgent leadership or the Pashtun way of life. The Pashtun elders are a less influential set of interlocutors for the United States than the Iraqi sheiks, who proved able to bring almost all their adherents over with them when they decided to switch sides. In short, the surge in Iraq has little application to Afghanistan.

Changing policy so dramatically after a decadelong effort will be difficult. Explaining why a counterinsurgency strategy will not work within any acceptable time frame, acknowledging that many brave men and women have died for areas that will now be ceded to the enemy -- these would be major political challenges for President Obama. Still, as painful as it would be, Western leaders would be strategically and morally deficient if they continued to pursue a strategy that has not worked in the past and is not going to work in the future.

Decades from now, historians will puzzle over why President Obama, despite his deep agonizing, as described in Bob Woodward's recent book on the war, accepted the deployment of 100,000 troops to Afghanistan nearly ten years after 9/11, and over why policymakers spoke as if the fate of the civilized world depended on the pacification of Kandahar and Marja.Henry Kissinger has observed that "for other nations, Utopia is a blessed past never to be recovered; for Americans it is just beyond the horizon." Reluctantly accepting a de facto partition of Afghanistan is hardly a Utopian outcome in Afghanistan. But it is better than all the alternatives.

~~~~~~~~

By Robert D. Blackwill

ROBERT D. BLACKWILL is Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. He served as U.S. Ambassador to India in 2001-3 and as Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Planning in 2003-4.