Marathon Pundit: WashPo: If we lose Afghanistan

Barack Obama's strategy on Afghanistan has been indecision. Liberal to the core, I suspect the president's heart isn't in the fight.

If that's the case, I have to wonder if Obama will take this battle to its necessary conclusion: defeat of the Taliban and a stable Afghanistan. What if we lose? The Washington Post analyzes:

At the heart of the Obama administration's deliberations about Afghanistan is the question of whether U.S. security rests on the defeat of the Afghan Taliban movement. The discussion often gets narrowed to the point of whether al-Qaeda, which is based in Pakistan, would gain a new haven in Afghanistan if the Taliban returned to power, so we'll start there. We won't, however, linger long, because for almost all military and civilian experts on the region the question is a no-brainer.

"Just like water running downhill, they're going to come back in," Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said on CBS's "Face the Nation" Sunday. "I think there's a real possibility," said Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.).

Al-Qaeda, however, is not the only reason to fight the Taliban. In fact, it may no longer be the most important one. By most accounts al-Qaeda has been put on the defensive in recent years, badly damaged by U.S. drone attacks and by its defeat in places such as Iraq and Saudi Arabia. The Taliban, on the other hand, has grown steadily stronger and more ambitious -- not only in Afghanistan but also in nuclear-armed Pakistan. The movement doesn't recognize the border between the two countries, since it is rooted in the ethnic Pashtun community that extends from southern Afghanistan through eastern Pakistan. By advancing to within 65 miles of Pakistan's capital earlier this year, the Taliban made obvious that it aims to destroy both governments.

It's true that the Taliban is fragmented, with some bits focused on Afghanistan and others on Pakistan -- though all are headquartered in Pakistan. But there is considerable evidence that the groups coordinate their actions. If the Taliban were to regain power in Afghanistan, it would provide a new base for attacks on Pakistan. And the Pakistani army, which has veered among backing the Taliban, making deals with it, and, most recently, going to war against it, would almost certainly give up its fight if the United States did.