“A decisive end seems nowhere in sight,” reports The Associated Press, noting the enduring Taliban insurgency, the failure of a negotiated settlement, the weakness of the US-backed Kabul government, and Washington’s plans to keep tens of thousands of troops in Afghanistan well beyond the much-cited “withdrawal date” of 2014.
“We are probably headed for stalemate in 2014,” says Stephen Biddle, a George Washington University professor who has advised US commanders in Afghanistan and Iraq. Biddle warns that the US will probably be pumping billions of dollars a year into Afghanistan for decades to come in an attempt to prevent collapse and civil war.
US and Afghan negotiators in Kabul have been meeting to hammer out a formal security agreement that will govern the presence of US troops past 2014, perhaps until 2024.
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