In one of his last interviews before he gives up the office of Afghan president, Hamid Karzai has dismissed the possibility that Al-Qaeda will ever return to his country. For that to happen, he is assuming that the Taliban will never again assume power. The US-led NATO operation which is due to end this December has focused largely on the training and equipping of the Afghan police and military. Billions of dollars have been expended on this particular part of the mission. And there have been confident claims that once the NATO backup is removed and the remaining 10,000 US troops quit in two years time, the local security forces will be well able to look after themselves. The successful staging of the two presidential rounds to choose Karzai's successor did indeed show that Afghan's could provide a high level of protection. However, it is clear that the Taliban were able to attack some polling stations, killing security forces and voters alike. In addition there was a horrible consequence of the indelible ink that was used to prevent voter fraud. Insurgents seized some people who had voted and cut off the still-inked finger. The reality is that unless the country's new leader can negotiate and bring the Taliban into the political process, the insurgency is likely to continue and maybe increase in tempo. Afghanistan's history has seen a succession of governments which have become beleaguered in the towns and cities and lost control of the generally mountainous countryside. Rebels were able to sustain themselves in remote locations where it was virtually impossible for them to be attacked, while they themselves could choose when to assault the government-held towns or the communications between them. Even the technology and the firepower of the old Soviet Union and the United States have been unable to destroy insurgent fighters in their mountain fastnesses. Therefore, the best that can ever be hoped for as long as Afghanistan is riven by conflict is a stalemate, but a bloody and destructive stalemate. There would have to be a major collapse in the Afghan police and army for the Taliban to once again take over the reins of power. And in any event as the Talibs discovered to their own cost, once they are in the cities, the strategic advantage passes to those who oppose them and take to the hills to wage a guerrilla war. There is an element in the Taliban that now sees the ready welcome originally given to Osama Bin Laden and his growing terror group as a serious mistake. The 9/11 attack made it inevitable that US reprisals against Bin Laden would involve the destruction of Taliban rule. Without the presence of Al-Qaeda the Talibs might still be in power in Kabul today. It is hard to see how Washington's attitude would be any different if the Taliban returned and brought with them Al-Qaeda. America's appetite for further foreign engagements which involve boots on the ground, is currently at an all-time low, with a vacillating president Obama who draws lines in the sand and then ignores them then they are crossed. But who knows who will be sitting in the White House in two and a half years' time or what further terrorist enormity will reunite the US public behind a rekindling of the full-on war on terror?
