Is the US admitting defeat in Afghanistan

Don't expect to hear about it in the
presidential campaign debates, but
the U.S. will leave Afghanistan locked
in an escalating civil war when it
observes the 2014 deadline for
withdrawing combat troops set by the
Obama Administration — and
supported by Gov. Mitt Romney . The
New York Times reported Tuesday
that the U.S. military has had to give
up on hopes of inflicting enough pain
on the Taliban to set favorable terms
for a political settlement. Instead, it
will be left up to the Afghan
combatants to find their own political
solution once the U.S. and its allies
take themselves out of the fight.
Washington has known for years that
it had no hope of destroying the
Taliban, and that it would have to
settle for a compromise political
solution with an indigenous
insurgency that remains sufficiently
popular to have survived the longest
U.S. military campaign in history. Still,
as late as 2009, the U.S. had hoped to
set the terms of that compromise, and
force the Taliban to find a place for
themselves in the constitutional order
created by the NATO invasion and
accept a Karzai government it has
long dismissed as "puppets." This was
the logic behind President Obama's
"surge," which sent an additional
30,000 U.S. troops into the Taliban's
heartland, with the express purpose
of bloodying the insurgents to the
point that their leaders would sue for
peace on Washington's terms. But the
surge ended last month with the
Taliban less inclined than ever to
accept U.S. terms as the 2014
departure date for U.S. forces looms.
http://world.time.com/2012/10/03/is-the-u-s-admitting-defeat-in-afghanistan/

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