Whether due to the hunt for Gaddafi, or in anticipation of Obama’s new plan to create jobs, Afghanistan has taken a backseat to other news developments vying for Americans’ attention. The Washington Post’s David Ignatius has an intriguing article, consequently, that some may have missed. Ignatius discusses a classified CIA analytical piece on the state of the Afghan war which purportedly asserts that the conflict is presently at a ‘stalemate’. Ignatius also astutely raises concerns about how Petraeus will deal with this apparent conflict between what are now his analysts and his own vociferous opinions.
As discussed in a previous post, I remain skeptical of how Petraeus will lead the CIA in light of its increased militarization, but this conflict in opinion is even more disconcerting; if we consider how much Petraeus has evidently invested in the Afghan war, his ability to remain neutral when analyzing it is thrown into question. For now, we should give him the benefit of the doubt and hope that the CIA’s analysts will not find themselves coerced into being further intellectual justification for the war. From my perspective, the Afghan war is already suffering from the diminished role that civilian leadership plays in providing critical analysis which can see through all the smoke that is Afghanistan – let’s not weaken it even more.
(Photo Credit: Michal Przedlacki, Man prepares tea in a chaikhana located at Kabul’s bird market, Kabul, Afghanistan, December 2010).
