The Pentagon’s announcement here Tuesday that it is dispatching some 3,200 marines to Afghanistan underlines both Washington’s mounting concern about the strength of the Taliban insurgency and the growing sense here that the central front in its nearly six-and-a-half-year-old “war on terror” has moved back to its South Asian roots.
The deployment, which will take place over the next three months, will bring the total number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan to a record level of some 30,000 — still significantly less than the 160,000 in Iraq but nonetheless an implicit admission that U.S. and NATO forces have not been able to subdue the largely Pashtun rebels.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Pakistan's Taliban are mounting their own surge.
