Given the lack of competent ground troops to take the fight to ISIL (due in part to the White House's implacable rejection of supporting or even tacitly cooperating with the Shia militias because of their link to Iran), it becomes absolutely crucial.
But we need to hear more from him and from President Obama about their strategy for holding cleared areas of Afghanistan and their plans for building up a minimally competent and credible Afghan government so American troops can go home.
18. (S/NF) The Canadian PermRep agreed the importance of a vastly larger and more competent ANA force, and proposed that up to 200,000 troops might be necessary.
The U.S. answer to this mess has been more training for Iraqi National Army troops, but training in the absence of competent and legitimate leadership and a unified country is of minimal use.
The increased troops, Obama said, "will increase our ability to train competent Afghan security forces, and to partner with them so that more Afghans can get into the fight.
That gathering, according to the British prime minister, Gordon Brown, is meant to push for the transfer of more responsibility for running Afghanistan to a competent new government, as a prelude to an eventual withdrawal of foreign troops.
But if 150,000 U.S. troops could not stabilize Iraq in the absence of an inclusive and competent government, the limited measures on offer now simply will not suffice.
As the leader of the NATO training mission, he is charged with fielding a competent army and national police force that (in theory) will eventually replace American and NATO troops.
All throughout 2010, Marjah remained a danger zone for U.S. troops as the Taliban forces who seemed to flee revealed themselves to be competent guerrillas, melting away before superior firepower only to slowly filter back in to plant roadside bombs and take potshots at troops.
