Sending more U.S. forces to Afghanistan is an idea whose time has come. The question is whether the time when it could work has already gone.
President-elect Barack Obama, departing President George W. Bush and holdover Defense Secretary Robert Gates have backed a plan to send 20,000 or more troops next year. Those forces must confront an increasingly entrenched Taliban enemy and a population grown hostile to foreign troops after seven years of U.S.-led warfare.
“We may have missed the golden moment there,” said Lawrence Korb, a former Pentagon official who has long advocated an increased U.S. focus on Afghanistan.
The tension between the short-run need for more muscle to thwart the Taliban and the long-term trap of becoming the latest in a long line of foreign intruders bogged down in Afghanistan forms the core of the dilemma confronting Obama.
Too Late for a Surge
