Afghanistan on the Brink

Afghanistan on the Brink

May 4, 2006

As the world’s attention — and that of much of the Bush administration — is focused on Iraq, things in nearby Afghanistan are slowly falling apart. As the New York Times reports, there are sections of Afghanistan that are completely in the hands of the Taliban or Al Qaeda. Even senior officials admit in private that the situation in Afghanistan is deteriorating. According to a Western intelligence official close to the administration, “senior members of the administration consider the situation in Iraq to be not as bad as portrayed in the press, in Afghanistan the situation is worse than it has been generally portrayed.”

• The Bush administration has not eliminated the threat posed by the terrorist networks that attacked us on September 11th. Nearly five years ago, Al Qaeda attacked the United States with impunity, and President Bush vowed to wipe them out, along with the Taliban, who harbored Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Today, the Taliban is on the rise again in Afghanistan. In 2005, the Afghan insurgency was responsible for killing approximately 1,600 people. And last year was the deadliest year for U.S. troops since the Taliban were deposed, with 91 killed in action — more than double the violence from 2004.
  
  
• Our involvement in Iraq is distracting the United States from addressing other emerging threats around the world. Three years ago, President Bush led the United States into war with Iraq, diverting necessary resources from Afghanistan. During that time, two emerging trends have appeared in Afghanistan that are causing serious alarm. First, the use of suicide bombing has dramatically increased; and second, the Taliban and Al Qaeda have escalated attacks on U.S. military bases. These attacks, in conjunction with increased beheadings and the prevalence of IED usage in Afghanistan, show that the insurgents are incorporating tactics developed in Iraq.
  
  
• We need to increase — not decrease — our presence in Afghanistan. While it is a good that NATO is moving to increase its troop presence in Afghanistan, it is not enough. The United States made a commitment to the American people and the people of Afghanistan that we are not keeping. We need more boots on the ground to bring order and stability to this country — if Afghanistan becomes destabilized, we will have a lot more to worry about than a “low-grade” civil war in Iraq. American Progress released Strategic Redeployment 2.0 yesterday which lays out a plan for moving forward in Iraq, as well as for dealing with the increasing threats in Afghanistan.