The new conventional wisdom is that the Afghanistan war is unwinnable, said Jochen Buchsteiner in Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “We all know that we can’t win militarily,” the U.N.’s top representative in Kabul, Kai Eide, said last week. His words were echoed almost verbatim by two top generals in the field, NATO commander Richard Blanchette and British commander Mark Carleton-Smith. British diplomats have reportedly told their French colleagues that it’s time to find an “acceptable dictator” and get out. And newspapers in the U.S. reported last week that the next U.S. National Intelligence Estimate on Afghanistan would conclude that the country is in a “downward spiral.” There also have been reports that the Afghan government has been secretly meeting with the Taliban, trying to work out some kind of peace deal. Is it time to give up hope of victory and just call a truce?
The West has already checked out of the Afghan conflict—at least mentally, said Pakistan’s Daily Times in an editorial. The Brits are openly talking about pulling their troops out, and the Canadians won’t be far behind. At a meeting of NATO defense ministers last week, the Germans pledged 1,000 more troops—but only with the stipulation that the soldiers wouldn’t be deployed in the actual war zone of the south. No wonder everyone is demoralized. Seven years of fighting in Afghanistan has not stabilized the country. It may be time to turn away from fighting and toward politics. A “regional forum that includes India, Pakistan, and Iran may be better.”
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
No equipment for Afghanistanfeature The U.S. has reportedly decided to hand over to Pakistan some $7 billion worth of American military hardware currently in Afghanistan.
-
How they see us: Crudely insulting our allies
feature Well, at least we know now what the Americans really think of us.
-
Spied-upon Germans are not mollified
feature In the wake of revelations last year about the NSA's spying activities, relations between Germany and the U.S. have been at an all-time low.
-
Is a deal with the U.S. in Iran’s interest?
feature The “unprecedented enthusiasm” of Western diplomats after the talks in Geneva suggests they received unexpected concessions from the Iranians.
-
How they see us: Sowing chaos in Libya
feature The kidnapping of Abu Anas al-Libi is an outrage committed against Libyan sovereignty—and it will have repercussions.
-
Europe is complicit in spying
feature It’s not just the Americans who have developed a gigantic spying apparatus.
-
Protecting Snowden
feature American whistle-blower Edward Snowden has proved a master spy with his “meticulously timed operation.”
-
Listening in on Europeans
feature Europeans are apoplectic over the U.S. National Security Agency's massive PRISM surveillance program.