I got this from the www.pinr.com website, which sends out foreign policy e-mails. It completely verifies everything Sen. KErry has been saying about AFghanistan and is damn scary to boot.
Intelligence Brief: N.A.T.O.'s Troubles in Afghanistan Will Persist
Drafted By:
http://www.pinr.com Growing instability and a resilient insurgency in Afghanistan are putting N.A.T.O. forces under severe stress and jeopardizing U.S.-led stabilization efforts. In response, on September 9 and September 13, N.A.T.O. called for reinforcements by asking for an additional 2,500 troops.
Poland, however, remains the only country to agree to provide additional troops, as Warsaw announced on September 14 that it would send 1,000 more soldiers to Afghanistan by February 2007.
Notwithstanding Poland's move, it is unlikely that N.A.T.O. will be able to secure the number of troops necessary to fulfill its military needs in Afghanistan. As a result, the U.S.-led coalition's political goals and security needs will be at risk, with dangerous consequences for Washington's credibility and strategic aims.
The United States' traditionally strong allies, Great Britain and Canada, have already signaled their difficulties in expanding military efforts in Afghanistan. Italy and France, heavily engaged in the Lebanon U.N.I.F.I.L. 2 mission, will not be able to upgrade their involvement in the Afghan context; Italy, for example, already accepted a strengthening of its politico-strategic role by assuming the N.A.T.O. command in southern Afghanistan during the summer.
Germany announced this week that it will send 2,400 soldiers to patrol Lebanon's coastlines and thus made a historic move as its troops will go back to the Middle East for the first time since 1945. As a result, Berlin will hardly supply more troops for Afghanistan.
The extreme difficulty in containing the Afghan insurgency and the rapid rise of Taliban forces in the country are discouraging many N.A.T.O. members to step up their participation in the mission. Fighting is intense and is unlikely to subside any time soon. Given the premises of the 2001-2002 period, when after the Taliban defeat many thought that the most difficult task was accomplished, governments in the West fear the political consequences of sustained casualties and the costs of the mission.
While N.A.T.O. members struggle with the financial and political costs of the Afghan engagement, Washington has to face not only manpower shortages, but also Pakistan's tactical shift since Islamabad settled a truce with Taliban militants in parts of the North-West Frontier Province last week and abandoned a more uncompromising pro-U.S. and anti-Taliban stance for the first time since 2001.
A general political settlement in Afghanistan remains unlikely, and the military confrontation between N.A.T.O. forces and the insurgency will continue in the coming winter months. While the mainstream media in the West remain focused on Iraq much more than on Afghanistan, the situation in the latter country is likely to rise in importance. The longer the ongoing conflict continues, the less politically manageable it will be, especially because it will add to the already extreme political trouble that the U.S.-led coalition has had to face in Iraq.
It follows that the United States will need to re-think its exit strategy in Iraq even more urgently, since the two fronts -- Iraq and Afghanistan -- risk converging in a ruinous way for the Bush administration precisely as mid-term elections approach. 
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