As the days and weeks have rolled along, the rationale for delay in making the least worst choice among the many available has eroded. The Pakistani offensive has continued longer than most expected it would--bolstered by the revulsion generally held in Pakistan at the Islamist jihadist resort to indiscriminate suicide bomb attacks on soft targets.
As has been the case so often in both Iraq and the AfPak efforts, the killing of civilians has been shown as quite counterproductive. While the US and its allies have learned the lesson, it is most fortunate that the Islamists are intellectually challenged in this most critical area. The equation is simple and has been seen at work in every war since the 20th Century started.
Killing civilians, particularly in ways which seem particularly cowardly such as air strikes and suicide bombings turns opinion sharply against the killers--not against the side which failed to protect its civilians. When American and other aircraft piled up stinking heaps of dead civilian bodies, sentiment and its handmaiden political will turned against the Americans. When Islamist jihadists blow themselves and oodles of nearby non-combatants into a red froth of protoplasm, sentiment and political turn against the Heroic Warriors of Allah.
The three hundred or so victims of Taliban bombs during the course of the Pakistani offensive into South Waziristan have done much to keep political support on the side of Islamabad. This is good from the American perspective even if Washington does have legitimate grounds to complain that the Pakistani forces have cut deals with anti-American, pro-Afghan Taliban rather than fight them.
However, the American dithering over further troop deployments is serving to erode Pakistani political will within the government, media, and--army. The uncertainty over the willingness of the US under its current administration to pay a higher butcher's bill in Afghanistan has been exacerbated by the never ending delays in the announcement of a decision.
No matter how long the US stays, one month, one year, five years, eventually the last US boot will leave. When that happens Afganhanistan will once more be in play as a proxy theater for competitors in the region. This will be true even if the Karzai regime does the impossible--stops corruption and delivers efficient, competent basic government services and a modicum of economic development.
Iran, Pakistan, India, and at least a couple of the Central Asian Republics see Afghanistan as a theater of political-military operations. Even now with the US still involved, the various external contenders are plumping up those Afghan factions with which they have the most effective relations. Iran has its proxies. Pakistan, just as was the case twenty years ago, has it's. India has made great gains both openly and otherwise cultivating potential proxy assets.
Arriving a bit late but with unlimited ambitions and cash the Chinese have also started finding or manufacturing clients within Afghanistan. At the present their interests are primarily economic but this is liable for change so as to include the political.
The projected uncertainty over the American future in Afghanistan has done nothing to slow the growth of adverse proxy forces in the country. Rather it has done the opposite.
Unless the assorted jihadist groups are neutered to an extent that none are attractive proxies, the scramble for advantage in the war after the war will continue to escalate. Thus the most critical goal of the US--that of destroying the Islamist jihadist groups in Afghanistan and along the porous border between that country and Pakistan becomes even more important.
The improbability of the Karzai regime reforming itself coupled with the strategic plans of neighboring states assures there will be a war after the war. From our perspective the necessity is assuring that the next time around there will be no chance of an Islamist jihadist success being achieved in the manner of the Pakistan created and supported Taliban not quite twenty years ago.
If Afghanistan is not to become a future home of yet one more semi-indigenous, semi-artificial Islamist jihadist government, the jihadists of today must be operationally destroyed. There is no need to create nor to leave behind some sort of imitation Western style secular state--that cannot be done. Nor is there any need to cleanse Afghanistan of Islamist tendencies--that cannot be done either.
What is necessary is to remove the stain of jihadism which covers the territory of both Afghanistan and Pakistan with the color of drying blood. It's simple. Islam? Sure. Islamism? Well, OK. Jihadism? No blinking way!
To achieve even this limited and barely realistic goal it will be necessary to fight directly and back the Pakistanis in their current and (it is to be hoped) future offensives. This means more troops. More body bags. More American blood shed in the hopes that less will be sacrificed in future years.
As the Geek well knows it takes a certain amount of testicular fortitude to enter combat. However, it takes as much--or more--to bite down on an unpleasant, bitter reality and put one's political future on the line and order more men to face the possibility of death, maiming, or psychological trauma in order to have some slight chance of securing a better future for the US.
It is necessary for a real president, or a real man for that matter, to make tough choices, choices between the bad and the worse, choices no one ever wanted to make. But, that is part of a president's job description. In case the current occupant of the Oval has not noticed yet, it takes a lot more than a charming smile and a good way with speeches to be a genuine president. It takes balls.
One can hope that the Nice Young Man From Chicago finds his.
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