Your answer suggests that the taliban is not as hated as your previous post suggests.
This response is rational, and so, may I suggest, has little to do with the Middle East. Have you ever heard the Arab saying "Me against my brother; me and my brother against our cousin; me, my brother and our cousin against the stranger"?
IMO the inhabitants of Kabul would welcome us as liberators and be grateful for desperately needed humanitarian assistance. Then they as they recovered, they would feel again their wounded pride, and turn on us because they are traditional Muslims and we are infidels who bear with us the decadent customs of the West. Then the Muslim, or better, the Islamist factions, would gain support again.
We may need to send ground troops into Afghanistan but we should have no illusions about what that is likely to mean.
Much depends on whether Pakistan gives real support or tries to pull an "Arafat", i.e. talk support and moderation in English and jihad in Arabic. If they try to give real support, they will utterly alienate themselves from the majority of their population, so it's not a good lookout. |
