Agree with Ben Zalman, we should get out fairly quickly, pick a side among the warlords to support

Submitted by Charles Martel (United States), Oct 30, 2009 at 14:42

I agree we should get out ASAP, but "ASAP" to me means several months during which we make an orderly withdrawal and embed our special forces with a preferred warlord alliance (probably whatever is left of the late Massood's Northern Alliance) to provide drone targetting and other non-ground-force support. We also offer enough subtle support to Karzai that he doesn't collapse for a few months after we're gone.

Phase one, the old civil war will resume, but the issues won't be as stark because we're not there. They're all conservative Moslems who can be prodded into outright radicalism but its not really their bag.

Phase two, after a few years the old tribal chaos will have resumed, maybe the Northern Alliance will have betrayed us -- something will have changed enough that our very light, invisible footprint will be withrdrawn or just whither down to nothing until the last US guy slips quietly out of the country.

I would advocate the same strategy in Iraq, making the Baathists the preferred recipients of our SOF aid. I like the Baathists because they're secularists, and Islam is the enduring problem.

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