Trump's Afghanistan strategy

So Trump has finally made up his mind about what to do in Afghanistan. Big announcement due tonight. I suspect after the months of back-and-forth debate and rows inside the White House and between the White House and the Pentagon and the CIA and State Department, nothing radical will emerge. In fact it will probaby sound very similar to what the US has been trying to do for 16 years: defeat the Taliban, force Pakistan to remove the Taliban sanctuaries on its territory, and pronounce a famous victory. None of these things are going to happen. Trump will call it his new South Asia strategy aimed at embracing all nations in the region, including India and Iran. Well, Obama tried that, and so did George W Bush, eventually. Trump will talk of the need to reach a political settlement with a disarmed Taliban playing a role. That's not going to happen either because the Taliban are on a role at the moment. The crucial issue is whether Trump goes against his instincts and allows Jim Mattis, his defence secretary, to send more troops to Afghanistan - about 4,000. I think Trump has probably come round to the view that withdrawing all US troops straightaway would look like an ignominious defeat for America, so that's out. He considered the idea of replacing US troops with private contractors run by Erik Prince, the former Blackwater chief of Iraq war notoriety. But with the sacking of Stephen Bannon from the White House, the former chief strategist who was the main supporter of the private contractor option, I think that idea is dead in the water too. So it's back to square one for Trump. I think he will authorise another 4,000 or so US troops to continue training and assisting the Afghan security forces who have lost thousands of soldiers in recent years in the war of attrition with the i, and he will probably send some more special operations troops to focus on al-Qaeda and the Isis presence in Afghanistan. He will then talk of the need to get Pakistan on side to bring peace to Afghanistan. But Pakistan is in political turmoil and is in no position to do what Trump wants. And while the politicians fight it out to get a new government after the departure of Nawaz Sharif as prime minister on corruption charges, the Pakistani military and intelligence service will carry on doing what they have always done which is to back the Taliban and play a two-faced game, pretending to be listening to America but actually ignoring Washington's entreaties to bring the whole treacherous charade to an end. So Trump will make a big noise, he will say the Americans have done enough and have been at war in Afghanistan too long. Yet he will send more troops but with tough words that they won't be there for ever. No real change then. I could be wrong of course. He desperately wants to cross Afghanistan off his list of priority foreign policy issues, but the military have got to him. Mattis will have spelled out the dire conseqences of a pull-out. It would be another Vietnam, and this time on Trump's watch.