Obama's indecisiveness over Afghanistan may very well lead to a whole other slew of problems, namely in Pakistan, India, and China. One of the primary objectives for the US in Afghanistan is to not only destroy al Qaeda hideouts, and the Taliban's, but to stabilize its border with Pakistan. Pakistan is facing a resurgent Taliban and al Qaeda in its own frontier provinces that threaten to topple not only the government, but send its nuclear weapons into unfriendly hands. India and China have the most to lose in this scenario. China's Uighur-dominated Western provinces were scenes of unrest in early 2009. India has had tense relations with Pakistan for decades and the thought of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of Islamic radicals will send the Hindu-dominated country into hair-trigger nuclear alert.
This public agony over what should be US strategic objectives in Afghanistan is a kick in the gut for US troops and red meat to those who perceive Obama as a traditional Democrat, i.e. weak on military and strategic stability, and figure the war is lost and start planning for the future. Robert Kagan at The Atlantic writes today:
The Afghan people have survived three decades of war by hedging their bets. Now, watching a young and inexperienced American president appear to waiver on his commitment to their country, they are deciding, at the level of both the individual and the mass, whether to make their peace with the Taliban—even as the Taliban itself can only take solace and encouragement from Obama's public agonizing. Meanwhile, fundamentalist elements of the Pakistani military, opposed to the recent crackdown against local Taliban, are also taking heart from developments in Washington.
