Al Qaeda, the Taliban, Afghanistan and Obama

Obama seems to be working toward his campaign promise to move the focus away from Iraq and onto Afghanistan. But this one could turn into another Vietnam if he isn't careful.

There's a great recent analysis of the Afghan, Taliban and Al Qaeda situation at Stratfor Global Intelligence. I'm using it for this post. Click Here to read the complete report.

Afghanistan is not Iraq. There are a lot of reasons that's true, but bottom line, the country and it's people are as different from Iraq as Mexico is from the US. And, like Vietnam, unless we have clear, reasonably attainable goals along with an exit strategy, we could end up mired in an un-winable conflict. And Obama could waste thousands of American lives and a lot of political capital for nothing.

Like the Viet Cong, the Taliban are excellent counterinsurgents. It's their turf, they have the support of enough of the people, and none of them expect the US to have the power, time and fortitude to do what it'd take to eliminate them. So they're just going to outlast us. And they have the ability to do it.

Al Qaeda, on the other hand, has been pretty devastated by our continuous, all-encompassing, mainly covert, campaigns against them. It's taken a toll on them, their videos and chest-thumping announcements notwithstanding. But they have the support of the Taliban and while not the force they once were, they continue to be hard to eradicate. They are fairly impotent right now, but can rebuild quickly if we lower our guard.

So where does that leave us? What should our actions and goals be in Afghanistan? Certainly we don't have the manpower and ability to mount an all-out campaign. Nor can we realistically expect to completely defeat the Taliban. And that isn't a good goal anyway. The Taliban are localized. It's Al Qaeda that drives the international terror actions, not the Taliban.

The Stratfor Group suggests, and it make sense to me, that a reasonable goal, as part of our War on Terror, would be to not concentrate so much on the defeat of the Taliban, but instead ensure that we maintain the ability to continue our covert efforts against Al Qaeda. So that means that we do what is necessary to support and defend a friendly Afghan government that will allow our CIA and covert military the access it needs to keep plucking away at Al Qaeda.

Anything else is a recipe for for reliving the devastation of Vietnam all over again.