A riff on Scott Corey's Afghanistan policy idea...

This is cold.  But given the damned-if-we-do, damned-if-we-don't situation the U.S. finds itself in Afghanistan, perhaps the U.S. policy should be, as Scott Corey suggested in yesterday's guest article in Juan Cole's blog, "Informed Comment," to stay for a fixed period (two years) to give the Afghanistan government time to get its act together, but if it can't, too bad.  That should give the government considerable incentive. 

I would add that the U.S. and its allies should also engage as much of the population as can be fairly well protected in development projects that provide as much quick and long term benefit as possible.  That way, if Afghanistan falls to the Taliban or other retrogressive forces, there could a kind of automatic destabilization of the oppressive regime as people remember "the good old days" when the West was there...

Maybe that's the plan.

I hope it is not too cyncial to interpret Obama's visit to the fallen soldiers as some kind of harbinger of a change of policy of some kind.  I hope it's for the better, whatever that may mean.

R.
 
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