Afghanistan Analysis: The Taliban Return to Marjah (Carlstrom)

Gregg Carlstrom writes for the Majlis:

One of the people I interviewed [at the Al-Jazeera forum in Doha, Qatar] was Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, the Taliban's former ambassador to Pakistan (his new autobiography is a worthwhile read).

We were talking about the Kandahar offensive (sorry, process) after the interview, which elicited a laugh from Zaeef. He held out his right hand to signify the US troops pushing into Kandahar, then drew a semicircle in the air to symbolize the Taliban. "They will not find us in Kandahar. We will go around them and attack them from behind."

Afghanistan, US Media, and Elections: Marching Orders to Protect the War (Mull)

I thought of this line when I read Dion Nissenbaum's disheartening (and entirely predictable) account [in McClatchy News Service] of Gen. Stanley McChrystal's visit to Marja last week. The takeaway:

There aren't enough U.S. and Afghan forces to provide the security that's needed to win the loyalty of wary locals. The Taliban have beheaded Afghans who cooperate with foreigners in a creeping intimidation campaign. The Afghan government hasn't dispatched enough local administrators or trained police to establish credible governance, and now the Taliban have begun their anticipated spring offensive.

McChrystal blames Marja's persistent insecurity on an insufficient number of troops. That's certainly part of the problem: 15,000 troops is an awfully small number to secure a sparsely-populated province like Helmand. A larger NATO presence would help keep the Taliban from returning.

But notice one of the key points in Nissenbaum's article: the Taliban are returning, meaning that the much-hyped operation in Marja didn't significantly weaken the Taliban in southern Afghanistan -- it simply displaced them. The US could send more troops to Helmand, but those troops (like the entire ISAF mission) would be on a finite timetable. The Taliban could simply wait them out, as they've done during prior Helmand offensives.

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