To win the Afghan War, we must fix the politics

          Michael O’Hanlon wrote an opinion article in USA Today titled, “To win Afghan war, we must fix the politics.” O’Hanlon has a lot of credibility because he has written books about the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and has been a security and military strategy analyst for different institutions. I feel that he is trying to reach a more liberal audience because he doesn’t agree that military power will help Afghanistan in the long run. Obama has recently proposed that 33,000 American troops will come home from Afghanistan by next summer and that the U.S. will continue to target terrorist organizations in other countries like Pakistan. O’Hanlon believes that in order to ensure Afghanistan’s future, the political system needs to not be dominated by only a handful of people and money needs to flow into the entire country. If only a few top leaders control the money, O’Hanlon believes that the Afghan population will continue to revolt and the war will never end. The author feels strongly that a true democracy in Afghanistan won’t happen unless there is a checks and balances system. He believes that it is up to the United States to teach Afghanistan how to fix its political problems and they should learn a lot from us. The United States is heavily responsible for the political system that is currently set up in Afghanistan. The U.S. helped select Karzai as president in 2001 and helped create its new constitution in 2003. The constitution is set up in way that only allows Karzai to hire governors, propose a budget, and set rules for elections. Karzai has become an almost autocrat and democracy is not likely to evolve. O’Hanlon believes that the U.S. should use quiet diplomacy to make sure that Karzai steps down after his term limit and to increase the amount of money going into the political system.

       I do agree with the author that the United States has an obligation to help create a stable democracy and political system in Afghanistan because we are responsible for destroying their previous form of government. On the other hand, I think that it is going to take a lot more than just creating a real democracy in Afghanistan to make sure that the United States is able to pull out. A large part of the population in Afghanistan doesn’t support the United States or its efforts and is likely to continue to rebel and revolt. The United States can’t expect for all of Afghanistan’s citizens to want to go along with us. We have killed thousands of innocent civilians there and we are sometimes looked at as the enemy. Even if we create a democracy and make sure that voting takes place, all of the revolts and attacks aren’t going to just stop. We are responsible to a certain point but I don’t think that only a democratic form of government is going to help the United States win the war. This may be a problem too big for the United States to conquer.