By Steve Hynd
The London Times looks ahead to what the best case scenario in Afghanistan might be, and it isn't all that "best". Citing the disasterous presidential election, widespread corruption, the opium trade's siren song, illiteracy and rising warlordism, the Times concludes:
Westerners who have worked in Afghanistan since before 2001 see a steady erosion of what were genuine Afghan hopes for a new beginning and a new government system after the US-led invasion. With uncertainty and instability growing, Afghans are in danger of falling back on the structures of the country�s civil war era: tribe and ethnicity. Some analysts now expect a potential tipping point � though not immediately � after which a civil war could again break out between the different ethnicities.
The conclusion is an obvious one. Even if things go well from here, the dream of a stable, democratic, tolerant and self-sustaining Afghanistan is not likely to be realised within a decade; probably not within three decades. Instead, the best that the international community can hope for is likely to be messy, fractious and austere. It may also be either a theocratic or autocratic state.
That's what McChrystal and his interventionist backers want to spend untold lives and at least $1.3 trillion on. Lovely.
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