More Troops
Obama was right to take his time. Unfortunately whatever he decided will risk being wrong. Once you embark upon an ill-planned, flawed war, that fails in its primary objective (getting Bin Laden), whatever you do will have a large measure of failure thereafter. The bitter element is that it costs lives of innocent civilians caught up in the conflict and it kills brave troops doing their duty by their country.
Although like Johnson before him with Vietnam, Obama did not start either front of the Iraq/Afghan wars (both triggered by 9/11, the biggest strategic trap into which the West has fallen for a hundred years) but he is left with the mess to resolve. He and his doubting country, will hope, as we surely do here, that a surge will bust the will of the Taliban. This will enable the Karzai government to discover the integrity to rule its country without corruption and enable its forces to maintain a lasting peace.
This looks perilously close to armchair strategy. From my armchair I see a Taliban bolstered by the ‘invasion’ of more foregn troops, putting up a helluva fight, then melting away, to give the illusion of stability. The foreign troops will come home (remember Vietnam?). The Taliban, or its successors will then return, the new state will collapse and Karzai will hang from a lamppost.
The only thing to prevent that might be if the Taliban came into Government now as the dominant partner and we did an economic deal with them to transform the living standards of their people. But then to do that would be to admit failure. But and a much bigger but, it would stop further bloodshed, reduce regional tension and would not need more troops.
There is only one prospect in Afghanistan. Mission failure. We might as well have it now as later.