Increasing troop levels is probably a necessary but far from sufficient condition for stabilizing and democratizing Afghanistan. We’d need to also employ counterinsurgency tactics which would include working closely with local populations to establish a functioning economy and coherent government. And that’s a far more uphill climb than what Iraq presented. Afghanistan has hardly any functioning economy, and I believe that they are politically far more balkanized, having not had a comprehensive and demonstrably functioning national government for some time.

That raises the obvious question as to whether we ought to get further involved or not. I can’t support further involvement by our nation unless we have a real majority on board for genuinely sticking with it and really trying to establish that government and economy. If all we want to do is temporarily increase the boots on the ground so we can spend a year or so hunting down bad guys and burning poppy fields, and then bailing, I’m not down with that. If we can’t stomach the nation and government as is, and so we break it, then morally we buy it. Along with all that means.

As Hitchens point out, the Afghan economy consists of “anything you like, as long as it’s opium.” We can’t go in there and burn poppy fields and just leave behind a couple of packets of seeds to grow Belgian Endive. The only sensible approach therefoer involves a gradual transition. And that means tolerating the current status quo to some extent we’d have to determine.

Buying the opium does IMo sound like a sensible idea at a glance. Maybe we come up with some sort of “we’ll buy your opium for this much per pound as long as you also produce y pounds of desirable crop x.” Farms growing opium plus some other crop are left alone, opium-only farms, not so much.