A look at the map shows what this implies. If you imagine a triangle with Kandahar, Kabul and Peshawar across the border as vertices, then al-Qaeda is positioning astride the Kandahar-Kabul and Kabul-Peshawar edges. If it cuts these links, the game is over. Eli Lake can also read a map and sees the obvious.
If Thornberry’s warnings prove correct, then Obama is faced with two bad choices. He either breaks his promise to end America’s longest war or he ends up losing that war by withdrawing U.S. forces from Afghanistan too soon, allowing al Qaeda to re-establish a base of operations in the country from which it launched 9/11.But Rep. Adam Schiff, “a Democrat who serves on the House Intelligence Committee” says that is the least Obama’s worries: “he said today the threat from al Qaeda was far more worrisome in Syria, Yemen, and Iraq.” Somehow, without the press noticing, al-Qaeda has metastized.
Still, there are forebodings that some kind of ‘Tet offensive’ will happen in Afghanistan as soon as American forces become too small to make a difference. The 10,000 troops Obama will leave in Afghanistan will buy him time, but not much else. When they go it may be the Last Helicopter Out of Saigon again....
How long before the crisis breaks? How long before something comes along he can’t run away from or fob off with a speech? No one can say. The calm may last indefinitely or it may shatter tomorrow. Events are no longer in the hands of Obama, but drifting on the winds of chance. The ball is rattling round the roulette wheel of history. Round and round it goes. Where it stops nobody knows. We’ve glimpsed the face of the monster in the woods. All we have to do now is hope he doesn’t come our way.
◼ As Obama Draws Down, Al Qaeda Grows in Afghanistan - Eli Lake/The Daily Beast
