Yesterday, US Ambassador to Afghanistan Ryan Crocker termed the 20-hour gunbattle in the capital city of Kabul “not a big deal,” even suggesting it might be a positive indication of the weakness of the Taliban that the attack didn’t kill more people.

Spin aside, however, the attacks bring up a very real series of questions about the Karzai government’s security strategy. Not only are attacks happening nationwide on a daily basis, but even the capital remains unsecured.

This is ten years into NATO’s occupation, and this is the best security the Karzai government can provide with massive NATO subsidies and 150,000 foreign troops backing them up.

This of course has spawned a number of analysts suggesting that NATO may need to push back the 2014-2024 drawdown several more years. Instead it should raise questions about the overall strategy, which despite the boundless optimism of US politicians is still going extremely poorly.

Last 5 posts by Jason Ditz

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