Our commander in Afghanistan rightly notes the main problem he has during our withdrawal over the next couple years and the hand over of responsibility to Afghans backed by only a residual supporting force of American and NATO/Coalition forces:
To me, as I come in, the more significant challenges in the campaign are actually psychological and -- and although the Taliban has pushed away -- been pushed away from the populated areas and I know you've been briefed many times on that. And we -- we use a statistic that 80 percent of the violence happens where 20 percent of the population is.
The statistics aren't so important as I -- I believe that we have seen indications of Taliban leadership fracturing. We've seen issues of friction between the leadership in the Taliban and the fighters. And we've seen issues of resource problems.
But there is one place where the Taliban still are successful and that is in the messaging. And they're -- and from my perspective, there's two messages that are resonating inside of Afghanistan right now.
One is of the coalition as occupiers, and the other is that the coalition will abandon Afghanistan at the end of 2014.
And both of those messages, while seemingly inconsistent live in the same space here inside of Afghanistan right now, and they create uncertainty and -- and as I've gone around and talked to my counterparts in the Afghan Security Forces, but as importantly members of civil society and -- and Afghan leadership.
The fear of -- the fear of uncertainty actually from my perspective right now is greater than any fear I've sensed about the Taliban. The people really are concerned about post-2014.
And -- and -- and so as -- as the Commander of ISAF as I come in, one of the most important things that I need to do is convey to the Afghans that commitment. We need to work to develop the final bilateral security agreement that the United States will sign with Afghanistan.
Resolve is our rear guard in Afghanistan, as I recently noted. And we don't have it despite 11 years of fighting there and giving the Taliban a solid pummeling while building up Afghan forces. If we hadn't prematurely ended our presence in Iraq after 2011, perhaps our commitment wouldn't be subject to such easy questioning.
Regardless of whether Iraq had an effect on Afghan confidence in us (and it is possible it does not), we have to bolster faith in our commitment to win in Afghanistan. Our government can do that, can't it?
