Strategypage writes about the situation in Afghanistan. The Taliban aren't that powerful in the larger scheme of things:
Afghans find it amusing when they discover that some foreigners really believe the Taliban could ever regain power. This is seen as another example of foreigner ignorance of how things work in Afghanistan. The reality there is that the Taliban never completed their conquest of Afghanistan in the 1990s and fell apart so quickly (in two months of U.S. supported fighting) because the Taliban were widely hated and still being resisted with force. Given that the foreigners have brought unprecedented peace and prosperity in the last decade, who in their right mind would want the Taliban back?
We can defend our gains in Afghanistan. Will we? I sure thought we'd do it in Iraq, after all.
