US President Obama’s troop pledge to send thousands of additional troops to Afghanistan rests on a gamble on unreliable and dubious allies supposedly working towards the pressing goals in that country. The troop surge will have to rely on the corrupt Karzai government, perceived to be one of the most corrupt political administrations in the world today, and Afghanistan’s poorly-trained military forces.

Now that the US has made its definite move, tougher demands are leveled on the Afghans to do their share for the sake of their country. Unfortunately, Obama’s 18-month timetable, intended to prod the Afghans into quicker action, may not be enough to clean up the corruption in Hamid Karzai’s government and spruce up the weak Afghan armed forces that only has 90,000 soldiers and 93,000 police to protect a population of roughly 30 million.

According to Obama, ‘the extra American soldiers would be on the ground only for a limited time to ensure the Afghans followed through.’

Obama seems to be ‘trying to resolve a central conundrum of American policy: how to force Mr. Karzai to curb corruption in his government without substantially weakening him if he fails.’ Along these lines, Obama changes his tack. He now ‘intends to curtail the amount of American money going directly to Mr. Karzai and the central government in Kabul. Instead, the president intends to channel more American money directly to local officials in the provinces.’

Obama is also bent on training ‘new Afghan forces to take over the security job.’ This is an even bigger gamble, tougher than straightening the crooked Karzai government. ‘Even by their numbers alone, the Afghan forces are woefully inadequate.’ To address this challenge, Obama, along with his commanders, will ‘rapidly expand the rank of Afghans under arms to about 240,000 soldiers and 160,000 police officers.’ To augment these forces, local defense forces or Afghan militias in villages and towns will be created.

Via The New York Times