It's Not About Afghanistan

One would think that with recent terror plots revealed in Dallas and New York the discussion about what to do in Afghanistan would be grounded in the reality of the wider campaign against Islamic terrorism. Neither plot traced back to Afghanistan. If either had succeed, scores of Americans would be dead. Yet somehow this is all basically irrelevant to those arguing for a surge into Afghanistan. Take Max Boot:

We do not have to create "Jeffersonian democracy" in Afghanistan. But we do have to keep it from becoming a terrorist haven. The only way to achieve that minimal objective is with a comprehensive counterinsurgency strategy. If Obama blinks now, he will be doing grave damage not only to U.S. security but to his own credibility.

Note to Boot: Afghanistan is not now a terrorist haven. And, as noted above, we still have a terrorist problem. If we follow Boot's advice, we will expend billions of dollars and risk thousands of lives and still have a serious transnational threat to deal with. This is a completely unsustainable and untenable counter-terrorism strategy. There are several countries that could become "terrorist havens." There terrorists plotting in Western Europe and there are terrorists inside the United States. The idea that we have to embark on a "comprehensive strategy" inside Afghanistan seems to surrender all of our flexibility to al Qaeda and its fellow travelers - who have already picked up and move elsewhere, while the U.S., at the behest of Boot and fellow surge boosters, is proving to the world that it is incapable of being similarly nimble.

(AP Photos)