Time to get serious in Afghanistan

There is an excellent OpEd column in today's WSJ calling for the US to step up and embrace expansion of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) to provide security outside of Kabul.   (Subscription required, email me if want to read it and I'll send it on.)   This is an important issue, for both moral and strategic reasons.

Morally, we should not allow Afghanistan to slide back into anarchy and civil war.   The US played a big part in helping create the current situtation in the country by our efforts during the 1980s to arm Afghani mujihadeen to resist the Soviet occupation and its puppet regime.   Afterwards, when some of the Islamist, Wahabbi allies of these same mujihadeen attacked us on 9/11, we responded by conclusively intervening in Afghanistan's civil war.   We owe it to this proud and independent people to finish the job and re-build a peaceful, stable society in Afghanistan.

Strategically, it would be a huge mistake to allow chaos and warlordism to return to Afghanistan.   One reason is that it would undercut US credibility throughout the Muslim world.   Another reason is that a fragmented, lawless Afghanistan would provide a useful sanctuary for Islamist guerillas and Al Queda to regroup.

As Ahmed Rashid and Barnett Rubin eloquently frame the issue in their column:

People in Iraq and elsewhere are watching to see if the U.S. is committed not only to defeating regimes it sees as threats, but to providing security and governance to the long-suffering peoples of those countries. They will draw their conclusions according to the results.

For my part, this is just another reason why we need to create a new branch of the US military dedicated to this type of "less than combat" military operation.   (For more on this idea, see here and here.)