iran to the west pakistan and china to the east and south and states that were once part of russia to the north afghanistan lies at the heart of a region that has long been an arena of imperial rivalry following in footsteps of alexander the great and ganga's khan the british launched military campaigns in afghanistan from bases in india their strategic goal was to thwart russian and persian advances in the region they finally conquered afghanistan and eight hundred seventy nine installed a compliant monarchy and established the duran line an arbitrary boundary between eastern afghanistan and what was later to become pakistan but a nineteen period from the one nine hundred thirty s to the one nine hundred sixty s the resilient cond family dynasty despite the occasional assassination gradually continued with political reforms which gave rise to numerous parties and factions many with ties to the soviet union finally in one nine hundred seventy three the monarchy was abolished in a nonviolent coup by former prime minister mohammad daoud and the republic was established but efforts at for the democratic development were undermined by economic instability leading to the takeover by a military coup of the soviet aligned factions of the peoples democratic party of afghanistan p d p a in nineteen seventy eight hundred seventy nine the marxist p d p a wants to campaign of radical modernisation overturning all religious laws and aggressively promoting women's rights and land reform while jailing and executing its political opponents as might be expected these measures prompted a major revolt especially in rural areas and heralded the rise of radical islamism as a force in afghanistan in one thousand nine hundred eighty nine the soviet staged a military intervention to come to the aid of the embattled government in afghanistan at the same time the united states saw an opportunity to score a victory in the cold war the cia's engaged the jimmy carter was expanded under the administration of ronald reagan in one nine hundred eighty and continued into the bush sr administration it was this covert operation sponsored by the u s and saudi arabia that ultimately gave rise to both the taliban and al unable to prevail against a hostile population and a persistent guerrilla force the soviets under president gorbachev withdrew in one nine hundred eighty nine shortly before the collapse of the u s s r but the government of bob come all held on until nine hundred ninety two when an interim islamic state of afghanistan was declared in the chaos that followed the pakistani backed taliban emerged victorious over the warlords of the northern alliance and the more liberal united front in a bloody struggle that ended in one thousand nine hundred six in their own brutal way the taliban restored a measure of order to afghanistan and attempted to curtail the illegal production of opium which still remains the mainstay of the afghan economy meanwhile the radical islamist organization al qaeda under the leadership of saudi billionaire osama bin laden had established a base in a remote area of afghanistan bordering pakistan and it was from here that al qaeda is plans to attack u s interests were  for coordinated suicide attacks on september eleventh two thousand and one shocked the world the perpetrators were senate and white as a group of nineteen men mostly saudi arabians who were organized and funded by al qaeda which was then headquartered in afghanistan understandably these events triggered a frenzy of american nationalism and a thirst for revenge the united states demanded that the al qaeda leadership be handed over while at the same time preparing for war even though the taliban agreed to surrender bin laden subject to proof of guilt a war was launched anyway only twenty seven days after the attacks on new york and washington the u s goal is not only the elimination of al qaeda and the removal of the taliban regime in afghanistan but more broadly a military campaign against terrorism anywhere in the world and in particular islamic terrorism underlying these actions was an ideology known as neoconservatism which was represented by powerful factions in the us foreign policy establishment since the end of the cold war their ambition had been to replace what were seen as backward regimes throughout the oil rich southwest asian region with modern democratic u s friendly governments the u s war in afghanistan waged mainly from the air in coordination with limited ground forces seemed at first successful the taliban overwhelmed by the u s backed northern alliance were soon toppled from power many people suspected of being terrorists were rounded up some were detained and tortured but the al qaeda leadership remained elusive in two thousand and two a new government was installed in kabul headed by a homemade karzai and for two years the defeated taliban lay dormant while the s and its nato allies embarked on a campaign of economic aid and social reforms promoting education and women's rights but when the u s attention was focused elsewhere in iraq a resurgent taliban saw an opportunity to stage a guerrilla campaign against the u s occupation and the increasingly unpopular government in kabul it was the seeming neglect of the war in afghanistan that emerged as an issue in the two thousand and eight election when candidate barack obama promised to end the war in iraq while we doubling u s efforts in afghanistan and in two thousand and nine as the situation in afghanistan failed to improve obama now president ordered a troop increase for six years afghanistan has been denied the resources that it demands because of the war in iraq now we must make a commitment that can accomplish our goals i've already ordered the deployment of seventeen thousand troops that have been requested by general mckiernan for many months but this change of tactics did not reach the heart of the problem because  foreign army occupying a muslim country did not sit well with a populace that had previously rejected similar interventions and when bin laden was discovered and killed in pakistan enthusiasm for the ten year old war began to fade together with the fervor to avenge nine eleven but a series of events in the spring of two thousand and twelve so enraged the afghans that even the karzai government was calling for an immediate s withdrawal and in america support for the war from across the political spectrum think and to crumble step by step bloody step by step the u s will withdraw most or all of its forces from afghanistan by two thousand and fourteen the  on thirty three thousand and right away some people on the left said but that's nothing because he put in thirty three thousand and now he's withdrawing them i look at it as i have a different sense of math even if you put in thirty three thousand the withdrawal of the thirty three thousand is not nothing thirty three thousand less it leave  countries canada germany england and so on to to look for the exits more quickly it also sets in motion a dynamic and interesting  dynamic with the regime that we support so fully in kabul they get the message that the americans are leaving and it it it it creates an unknown set of  conditions one is panic to disbelieve three is really you know searching for allies to renegotiate fundamentally about protecting the reputation of the united states and cannot be seen as being a weak defense or defeated quote unquote or losing  afghanistan taliban and that that tendency to be overly concerned about our reputation worsens our reputation because it allows for the perpetuation of the war torture dungeons all kinds of terrible things and it also may not put off a day  choir's them to look for a way to cover up a retreat if they have to retreat my business is to try to take that into account and advocate forms of redeployment as they say since retreat the taliban and their friends and pakistan will perhaps overestimate their success and they could they could make a mistake by going too far by setting their sights on the overthrow of the kabul government and marching into kabul to put up the taliban government what's wrong with that scenario is that the taliban really are popular only in the south and east of ghana stand because their passion to own people forty two percent of the population also southern pakistan their enemies among the taj were twenty seven percent of the population are the same enemies they had in the in the war a decade ago that ended in a bloodbath between the northern  and the taliban so i think it's most unlikely that this afghanistan will end in a taliban takeover as they say for one reason the united states will will oppose that and so will the europeans it's more possible that the civil war could resume that would make it harder to get out so that leaves a kind of a partition or a territorial compromise with a power sharing arrangement and supervision peacekeeping troops from countries that have not been engaged on either side there are islamic countries who are not engaged sounds bizarre well  something like the same happened in the data negotiations about bosnia and it could happen again what is peculiar about this is going back to iraq in iraq the united states helped iran's the interests of iran if you put a shia government into power in iraq you're helping iran ok in afghanistan afghanistan is the opposite in afghanistan iran  enormous hostility towards the taliban they've had violent frictions the taliban represents sunni and not the interests of iran iran was on the side as the united states a decade ago with the the northern alliance iran has another interest in afghanistan which is all the opium  flows out of afghanistan over the border with iran there's an enormous opium addiction problem in iran as a result not to mention europe tens of thousands of people overdose on that that substance so the united states should make a coalition with iran over getting out of afghanistan a a coalition with india which is a hindu dominated state and the reason for that i think is that the united states wants a partner against china but in making a partner of india it brings out the hostility from pakistan and from afghanistan who don't want india to become the police power or the economic power over the future of afghanistan the pressure of this between afghanistan and pakistan the so called your own line  has to be some kind of unification not a day goes by when i don't spend hours reading reflecting thinking doing talking teaching in writing about these wars since they began and in the course of this i discovered that there's an actual doctrine that i would say obama is is  quietly opposing but it's a doctrine held by many in the counterinsurgency community and in the pentagon and it's an at some actual doctrine called the long  after nine eleven about two thousand and four the doctrine began to get legs and find its way into journals of military experts called the long war journal for example you can look it up the speeches of american generals the it infected the vocabulary of the neoconservatives and in essence it says we will fight this war against terrorism against muslim fundamentalists wherever they are across the world for fifty years to eighty years and and in wars like iraq are episodes there there are small wars within the context of the the long war according to the title of one of these books and the reason this has to be hidden is you can imagine is that it would it would probably end the apathy of many young people students because there's no draft they're not primarily engaged in the subject but if they learned that there was going to be an eighty year period of consecutive war and it was going to be financed by them because it's not coming out of current tax dollars and they looked at the casualties they would wake up no american voter in their right mind and i know there are many who may not be in their right mind would support an eighty year war or a fifty year war if the current cost of iraq alone is in the millions you're talking about i mean trillions you're looking at at a cost of these wars that in the many many trillions if they go on for fifty years fifty years eighty years is twenty presidential people somebody who may not be born or may not be out of high school will become president before this is over if these neo conservatives have their way so  i became quite startled and i came to the conclusion that obviously we can't afford in any sense and unfunded on when a bold multi trillion dollar war that claims thousands of lives and it hangs like a shadow over our future and that's the reason that they're keeping it so quiet to themselves