Putting Afghanistan back on the front burner

by: Justin Lynch

http://www.slate.com/id/2214726/

Barack Obama campaigned with the promise to make the battle in Afghanistan more important. With the promise of at least 17,000 additional troops to "take the fight to the Taliban in the south and the east and... go after insurgents along the border," Obama seems to be making good on his word. However, as odd as it may sound, Afghanistan is probably a more complicated war than Iraq. Where Iraq is mostly flat, Afghanistan is in a mountainous region where the clear advantage lies with those who know the terrain (look at how Bin Laden has been able to hide in the mountainous region somewhere in Afghanistan/Pakistan and how the Taliban have been able to stay alive.) Also, with numerous tribes and regions where government is basically non-existent, Afghanistan as a whole is going to be almost impossible to nail down. Obama's strategy, as described by Fred Kaplan, is basically part counterinsurgency and part counterterrorism, which seems like a good mix to start bringing stability to the country we started fighting more than seven long years ago.