[Guest post by DRJ]

A new Pentagon report says the Taliban in Afghanistan is getting stronger:

“The new report offers a grim take on the likely difficulty of establishing lasting security, especially in southern Afghanistan, where the insurgency enjoys broad support. The conclusions raise the prospect that the insurgency in the south may never be completely vanquished, but instead must be contained to prevent it from threatening the government of President Hamid Karzai.

The report concludes that Afghan people support or are sympathetic to the insurgency in 92 of 121 districts identified by the U.S. military as key terrain for stabilizing the country. Popular support for Karzai’s government is strong in only 29 of those districts, it concludes.

U.S.-led military operations have had “some success in clearing insurgents from their strongholds, particularly in central Helmand,” the report said. But it adds: “The insurgent tactic of re-infiltrating the cleared areas to perform executions has played a role in dissuading locals from siding with the Afghan government, which has complicated efforts to introduce local governance.”

The report concurs with earlier findings by the U.S. commander, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, and others that violence in Afghanistan began to level off in the first months of 2010. But the Pentagon also notes that Afghan insurgents consider 2009, Obama’s first year in office, to be their most successful year because of their ability to increase the level of violence.”

The Pentagon is not ready to give up and believes its counterinsurgency strategy will work in time. I don’t know what the right military decision is but if President Obama gives up on Afghanistan at this point in his Administration, it will encourage foreign nations to view America as weak and treat it as useless.

— DRJ