think about it when it comes to our core objective. it was the taliban that allowed al qaeda to establish its bases and sanctuaries in afghanistan when it controlled a good bit of the country. and that gives big pause needless to say and that s why again this insurgency has to be combatted. the bottom line question that i ve been thinking about asking you is if we win in afghanistan what do we win? if we lose, what do we lose? well, the latter is almost easier because if you lose, it has, i think, some significant repercussions not just for this country although they would be enormous and the start with the cover of time magazine for starters and then think about security interest and then think about the region and what it could do to the region if extremists were able to take over all or part of this country
objectives if iran can look past its desire that we not succeed too easily. iran doesn t want to see the taliban come back anymore than do most afghan citizens. it s an ultraconservative extremist sunni islamic organization and they don t want to see it rule the country the way it did in the past. having said that, they also don t want to see us achieve our objectives easily and they have indeed provided over time what one might call modest amounts of weapons, explosives, and funding and some training to the taliban as well. what s worse, iran with a nuclear weapon or the fallout of an attack on iran to prevent a nuclear weapon? that s one for the policy makers. of course that s the huge question that looms out there. obviously when i was a central command commander, we had a variety of different input and made a variety of different
are conflict resolution, local conflict resolution, land dispute, petty crime and so forth and if the government can t do that or won t do it or doesn t do it properly, that s when the taliban can appear to be an alternative and that s reality and we and our afghan partners are aware of that. it s one reason that we are supporting the civilian effort to enhance rule of law and so forth in a much more significant way than we have in the past. on this big point, how do you respond to critics who say, look, general, you have got to redefine your nation building goals for afghanistan. it is simply too much to accomplish dealing with a population too resistant to outsiders. we can t succeed at that. at the end of the day it s not about their embrace of us and not about us winning hearts and minds it s about the afghan government winning hearts and minds. this isn t to say there s any kind of objective of turning afghanistan into switzerland in three to five years or less.
popular move at the time having been in the center of that and it was a very tough call and we went through a number of very difficult months as you recall because of the level of violence that went up quite considerably as surge forces arrived and as they went into offensive operations to take away the sanctuaries from the enemy that al qaeda in iraq had enjoyed for a couple of years in some cases. it s not unlike a bit of what is playing out here albeit not quite the same scale throughout the country because again the situation here is quite different. when it comes to iran and its effect in this country, are you now considering active talks with iran as it applies to the future of afghanistan? i am certainly not. obviously that would be a huge policy decision but the fact is that president karzai has had discussions with iran. there are areas of convergence. this is a country in which there are actually some common
traditional social organizing structures as part of the ultimate solution, if you will, with tribal councils which are quite democratic. they then connect at the district or province level with what goes up to kabul and comes out as well. afghanistan good enough, does that entail redefining, defining down some of the goals for rebuilding the nation? i think some of that was done last year actually during the course of the process that president obama and the new administration led. i think there was a refinement of objectives. a recognition of realities on the ground that need to be measured in what it is that we can actually achieve. that s where this concept again of not trying to turn afghanistan into a western industrialized democracy in five to ten years. if the outcome is like iraq, is that achieving the mission? the outcome in iraq is still