Yglesias » The Karzai Factor

Yglesias » The Karzai Factor: "Well . . . that’d be nice, but when last we saw General Petraeus was moving US military tactics away from that kind of counterinsurgency model in favor of more use of firepower. And on some level I think the way this works is that “counterinsurgency” means whatever Petraeus and his proteges say it means. What’s more, if the US government decides Karzai’s attitude makes continuing the war impossible they might just as easily decide to get rid of Karzai as decide to end the war. I certainly hope it doesn’t come to that, but all the signs from the administration are that they’re absolutely determined to give this thing a few more years worth of time and all their other decisions seem to flow from that."