The Administration of President Barack Obama is wagering on the result of the war in Afghanistan in order to determine the outcome of its battle against terrorism and ward it off its soil. It also considers that the return of the Taliban movement to power in Kabul would mean providing a safe haven for the Al-Qaeda organization, which would allow it to restore its capability to carry out large-scale operations like the attacks of September 11. The government of German Chancellor Angela Merkel has relied on such a wager to pass its decision to increase its country's military contribution in Afghanistan. Yet such a step taken by Germany does not mean that the NATO allies, and particularly the Europeans, are headed towards a similar decision. Even if the situation on the ground had required an increase in troops, under the plan of broadening the current campaign in Helmand to reach Kandahar, the Taliban's main stronghold and the Pashtun cultural-ideological center which supplies the movement with followers and fighters. On one hand, there is an increasing conviction in European NATO capitals that the war will not deal a crushing defeat to the Taliban and will not ensure control over the Afghan situation, unless it is coupled with a political and growth plan that would ensure attracting the main bulk of Pashtuns and provide broad popular cover for the new regime. Such a plan thus reexamines the nature of the current regime, whose influence does not exceed minorities, especially the Tajik, which had been waging a war against the Pashtun under Taliban rule. On the other hand, this war meets in Europe with growing popular opposition, considering its high cost in human lives and the meager results it has achieved so far, as well as with criticism and moral and humanitarian condemnation for the high number of victims among Afghan civilians. Such a reality has led US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, after the Dutch government announced its decision to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan at the end of the year and the opposition supported such a step, to criticize Europe's pacifist tendency which, in his opinion, is not helpful in the ongoing war against terrorism. As for the situation on the ground in Afghanistan, it suffers from many gaps, military, political (the nature of power and the structure of the regime of President Hamid Karzai, who despite being Pashtun relies on minority forces), economic and growth-related, despite the billions of dollars that have been spent so far. Yet more dangerous than all of this remains the issue of the fate of the tribal region in Eastern Afghanistan and its intermixing with the situation in Pakistan. Indeed, on one hand, this region holds the bulk of the Pashtun population spread between the two countries, and on the other, it represents the starting point for Pakistan's governmental action in Afghanistan and for its indirect confrontation with India to regain influence in Kabul. And it so far does not seem that Washington has been able to resolve this Pakistani problem, as what is required of Islamabad is complete engagement in the war against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, at a time when Karzai's ruling coalition is expanding. In other words, what is required of Pakistan is for it to crush the radicals who had once been its instruments in the struggle against India. That is the source of ambiguities surrounding the relationship of Pakistani intelligence with those radicals, and of what this produces in terms of difficulties on the ground in the battle against the Taliban. Equally on the other hand, the plan of “Afghanizing” control on the ground has not achieved any kind of significant progress, and NATO forces, particularly US troops, remain in the forefront of every battle and confrontation – this in spite of the decision in principle for Afghan forces to take over security tasks in the country over the next two years. Furthermore, experience has shown that the Taliban regain every location which NATO forces withdraw from and entrust Afghan forces to defend. The weakness of Afghan forces in facing the Taliban is not only due to poor training and the lack of sophisticated weapons, but also to the paucity of popular demand to join them, especially among ethnic Pashtuns. The campaign on Marja, in which NATO gathered more than 15 thousand soldiers, supported by highly advanced warplanes and heavy artillery, has shown how difficult it was to eliminate members of the Taliban, most of whom have either melted away among the city's inhabitants or continue to resist in surrounding villages. All of this points to the fate of the planned campaign on Kandahar in order to strike a lethal blow to the Taliban, to the capability for constant field control of the locations from which the movement is expelled, and eventually to the fate of the general confrontation in Afghanistan.
