Today I joined number of leading Afghan experts, from Ahmed Rashid to Gilles Dorronsoro,
in calling on President Obama to change the American strategy in Afghanistan. Based on our work in and on Afghanistan, we wanted to make a number of points just as the White House begins reviewing
its strategy:
First, that the cost of the war is now over $120 billion per year for the United States alone. This is unsustainable in the long run.
Second, despite these huge costs, the situation on the ground is much worse than a year ago because the Taliban insurgency has made progress across the country.
The military campaign is suppressing, locally and temporarily, the symptoms of the disease, but fails to offer a long-term cure. The Taliban today are now a national movement with a serious presence in the north and the west of the country.
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