À Lire: Council On Foreign Relations: Reason (AMERICAN Reason, for the Colonised)

And remember, all this is from an American realist perspective, so it goes 1000 times more for Canada. Stop the March of Folly!

Influential panel says U.S. should cut troops in Afghanistan if no progress seen: "But the task force, led by former deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage and former national security adviser Samuel Berger, implicitly argued against extending the withdrawal deadline. WE HAD THE KIND OF DEBATE AMONG OURSELVES THAT THE CONGRESS HOUSE OF COMMONS SHOULD HAVE, THE AMERICAN CANADIAN PUBLIC SHOULD HAVE ON A MATTER THAT'S SO IMPORTANT, AS IT INVOLVES THE LIVES OF OUR MEN AND WOMEN IN SERVICE, AND CIVILIAN ORGANIZATIONS" (EFL bold & edits)

Washington doit envisager un rapatriement rapide des troupes : « Mais si la stratégie de l'administration Obama ne réussit pas, Washington devra songer à un retrait plus important et beaucoup plus rapide de ses troupes. Plutôt que de vaincre les talibans, les Américains devront se contenter de combattre le terrorisme en Afghanistan, croit les experts du CFR. »

Rethinking an Afghanistan Exit Strategy: "we ought to not wait until July 2011 to change directions...Given that we have a weak partner in the Karzai government and only a partial partner in Pakistan, we can't keep doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome...after 2005, the ISI came to the conclusion that maybe the coalition wouldn't prevail, and if that was the case, they were going to make sure they had a seat at the Pashtun table in the south and the east in Afghanistan. So that's kind of where we are."

Independent Task Force Conditionally Supports U.S. Policy in Pakistan, Afghanistan, but Argues for Changing Strategy Absent Progress: December 2010 review should be “a clear-eyed assessment of whether there is sufficient overall progress to conclude that the strategy is working.” If not, the report argues that “a more significant drawdown to a narrower military mission would be warranted.”

U.S. Strategy for Pakistan and Afghanistan: Afghanistan faces the challenges of “pervasive corruption that breeds the insurgency; weak governance that creates a vacuum; Taliban resilience that feeds an atmosphere of intimidation; and an erratic leader whose agenda may not be the same as that of the United States.”