A Textbook Case

One year after his election, Barack Obama is becoming increasingly accountable for his own actions. He is no longer merely subject to the disastrous legacy of his predecessor. From Jerusalem to Islamabad, Bush’s diplomacy was a total failure, a mixture of arrogance and incompetence. Afghanistan is a textbook case. After eight years of war and thousands of deaths, the Taliban are more powerful than they have ever been in this fractured country, and their sanctuary in Pakistan is hardly in any danger. Obama is right to revise this failed policy. But there is no reason to believe that sending reinforcements will bring about the victory which has been so elusive.

Regardless of their good intentions, foreign soldiers will always be seen as enemies and invaders. Hamid Karzai’s regime appears more ineffectual and corrupt than ever after the truncated elections. As for the Afghan people themselves, they are still as poor as ever, and still have little prospect of receiving the schools, roads and hospitals that might persuade them that western intervention is justified. In this country which has been the graveyard of so many empires, the people know that foreigners never stay for long, whether they are Greek, British, Russian, or, in this case, French and American. Obama’s hesitation between an exit strategy and a greater engagement of troops will above all convince the Afghans and Pakistanis that he, too, will one day abandon them. As one of Obama’s Democrat allies, recently returned from Afghanistan and highly conscious of the concerns of American voters, noted, it is hard to see what a credible victory in Afghanistan would mean.