No matter how many bombs you drop on "the Graveyard of Empires", the Taleban won't be eradicated. In fact, the more deadly strikes that are launched that inevitably kill and injure civilians, the more support the Taleban receives in Afghanistan. When will Western powers learn the time-honored principle that violence only breeds more violence? When will they learn that the more they bring out the guns, the more entrenched their enemy becomes?
There are precedents for this view. When Israel went after Hezbollah in the summer of 2006 its bombardment only served to increase the popularity of Hassan Nasrallah's organization. And following Israel's 22-day attack on Gaza, Hamas has emerged even stronger than before to the extent that if a Palestinian election took place tomorrow, polls suggest Hamas would come out on top.
You might have imagined that the US government had learned this lesson from experience. It wasn't the injection of more American troops into Iraq that quelled the insurgency contrary to what most people think. It was a change of policy involving talks with formerly hostile Sunni tribal leaders, who helped the US track down foreign fighters and took responsibility for securing their own areas. It's difficult to understand why the Obama administration doesn't use this tried and true strategy in Afghanistan.
President Obama seems to believe that sending 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan will do the trick. Given the size of the country, the mountainous terrain, the difficulty of distinguishing friend from foe, and the popular support enjoyed by the Taleban, this is more than a long shot. It isn't surprising that Washington's European allies aren't rushing forward to donate their own soldiers to an expensive and unpopular war that has little chance of success.
This appraisal of the way things are going in Afghanistan isn't some flight of my imagination. Last month, Sen. John McCain said, "In Afghanistan today, we are not winning. Let us not shy away from the truth..."
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper wants to walk away entirely declaring, "We are not ever going to defeat the insurgency".
Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen told a congressional committee that "We can't kill our way to victory" in Afghanistan.
Britain's Ambassador to Afghanistan Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles has been quoted by a French paper as saying America's strategy "is destined to fail" citing the foreign military presence as part of the problem.
Instead of more US and NATO troops, he would prefer "an acceptable dictator" who would facilitate the exit of foreign armies within a decade. How that would be sold to Western publics given all the fanfare concerning Afghanistan's new "freedom and democracy" is anyone's guess.
President Obama, however, isn't in any mood to quit. On the contrary, according to the New York Times, he is considering expanding "the American covert war" in and around Pakistan's city of Quetta to target Al-Qaeda and Afghan insurgents, thought to have sanctuary within this area that flanks the Afghan border. In light of Pakistan's current volatility, that could be the match that lights an unstoppable conflagration.
Unlike the deeply unpopular Iraq war waged under false pretences, Afghanistan is still considered "a good war" by many even though, to date, there has been nothing good about it.
There has been little reconstruction outside the capital Kabul and the International Committee of the Red Cross has warned of a deteriorating humanitarian situation. Almost everywhere the constraints put on woman and girls by the Taleban still exist with female self-immolation having reached the highest recorded levels in the province of Herat.
Director of the Afghan Women's Fund Fahima Vorgetts said many positions of power are held by warlord allies of the US who are brutally biased against women.
Moreover, the poppies have never bloomed as extensively as last year when there was a recorded bumper crop, which arrives in European capitals in the form of heroin and destroys young lives. Ironically, the Taleban managed to clamp down on the drug trade when they were in power.
So what has the invasion and occupation achieved besides awarding Afghanistan with a fig leaf labeled "democracy"?
Certainly, the war's stated aims of destroying the leaders of Al-Qaeda and the Taleban haven't materialized. As far as we know, Osama Bin Laden and his sidekick Ayman Al Zawahiri are still alive and kicking, as is Taleban leader Mullah Omar. That alone must be a huge embarrassment to the superpower after it expended so much manpower and treasury on that quest.
In the end, the US will have to talk to the Taleban whether it likes it or not. President Hamid Karzai came round to that way of thinking a long time ago. "As I have called upon Mullah Omar the Taleban leader many times, I call upon the others, Taleban members too, that they should come back to their country, rebuild their country, they are welcome", he has urged. But as long as his appeal isn't supported by the US administration it is doomed.
Surely it's time for President Obama to put the tragic specter of 9-11 behind him, forget any idea of American face saving, and strategize a way forward that would benefit Americans and Afghans alike. Chucking more bombs and sending more troops is akin to pouring mineral water on rocks hoping for something to grow.
The idea espoused by many in Washington that Afghanistan left alone would become a danger to the US is unrealistic emotionalism. Provided the administration gains the cooperation of bordering countries, which include Pakistan, China, Tajikistan and Iran, such a threat could be easily contained.
There are signs that President Obama may be open to negotiating with the Taleban. Let's hope he is decisive enough to take that course for the sake of the long-suffering Afghans, the security of Pakistan, and those young uniformed men and women upon whom Western governments have thrust an impossible task.