RAISING THE ANTE

The President is said to be "doubling down" in
Afghanistan. That's a gambling term, and we're
talking here about a BIG gamble! What makes it
such a risk are at least three unpredictable and
unreliable variables: 1) the continuing willingness
of the Afghan people to let us carry on our war vs.
Muslim extremists on their turf. 2) the continuing
willingness of the American public to pay and keep
on paying in lives and money for another eight years
or more. With the additional troops we are now up-
ping the ante from $2 bn. a year to $3.5 bn. 3) the
continuing willingness of Pakistan to let us attack,
within their borders, the bad guys we are seeking,
who take refuge there.

Now a few additional words about each of these vari-
ables: the Afghans are heroic fighters, who valiantly
defeated 160,000 Soviets. They did that with our help.
When it was finished, we left, allowing the brutal Taliban
to take over most of the country. Many Afghans (not
unreasonably) suspect we'll tire of this conflict, or its
focus may shift elsewhere, and we'll abandon them again.
So a lot of them are on the fence, not wanting to offend
the Taliban folks who might wind up ruling again.

As for the determination on the part of the American
public to see this thing through for 5 - 10 - 15 more yrs.:
Obama is "pot committed" as they say in poker. He's "in
for a dime, in for a dollar." But he'll probably be a one
term president if he doesn't achieve solid double turn-
arounds, in Afghanistan and in our economy. I don't
think he can do both with the dysfunctional Congress he
has to work with. Do you? If Afghanistan is still in
trouble four years from now, O.'s opponent(s) will run on
a plan for getting us out of there. So much for our undy-
ing resolve. The Afghanis understand this, even if we
don't.

The key to all of this is Pakistan of course. Afghanistan
is landlocked. All of our heavy military supplies that
can't get there by air go thru the Khyber Pass from Paki-
stan. Anti-U. S. Islamists in Pakistan are gaining in
strength steadily, and increasingly are attacking our con-
voys en route to the pass. If Pakistan gets sufficiently
upset with our drone attacks on their villages, they'll
simply let the Jihadis close the pass. Our choices then
will be: a. go to war in Pakistan. b. make nice with Iran
so we can go through there. and c. scale back our activi-
ties to what we can supply by air or through Tajikistan,
Uzbekistan, or Turkmenistan, all of which are also land-
locked Muslim countries that dislike us.

Now you can see why David Brooks in his rosy scenario
on Afghanistan which I reviewed in yesterday's blog, did
not go into the Pakistan questions. But of course, Paki-
stan is the ball game. As Fareed Zakariah wrote recent-
ly in Newsweek: "If the problems with Pakistan cannot
be solved, the war in Afghanistan cannot be won." Period.
End of discussion. It's as simple as that (and as difficult.)

Regardless of what the Pakistan government promises
or attempts, it doesn't control its own army. And the P.
army's main concern is not Afghanistan: it's India. That
is because the Pakistani peoples' main concern is Kashmir.
We are on India's side on Kashmir. And it's the wrong side
morally. And the stupid side strategically. We claim to be
for justice and democracy. We aren't there, and we aren't
on Palestine either. Justice demands that the Muslim ma-
jority in Kashmir be allowed a free and honest vote super-
vised by the U. N. on whether the Muslim part of Kashmir
be allowed to become part of Pakistan.

When the Kashmir question is settled justly and fairly, the
ISI (Pak. intel) will stop training and equipping radical
Islamists that they now feel they need to fight for them
in and about Kashmir. It's in India's interest also that this
be settled without further bloodshed. They have already
fought four wars over it. The next one may involve nukes!
Then all bets (and betting) are off. The ensuing destruc-
tion is certain.

John Goodwin -- let me hear what you think.

jgoodwin004@centurytel.net