The Taliban ‘waiting game’ in Afghanistan, mapped by media since 2009 --- The Washington Post published a strong story Tuesday out of Afghanistan, where my colleague Ernesto Londoño recently spent time with paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division. The unit he embedded with has been assigned to drop into contested areas to see how Afghan troops are holding up against insurgent groups as the U.S. pulls thousands of troops of Afghanistan this summer. -- The story hits on a central theme: The Taliban’s perceived waiting game. -- “If I was an insurgent, I would wait until the Americans left and try my luck with the ANSF,” Capt. Michael Wallace told Londoño, using the acronym common for the Afghan National Security Forces. “When we’re with them, they can make us have bad days, but they’re never going to win.” -- American troops have long questioned whether the Taliban is planning, or able, to launch a massive offensive against Afghan troops once the coalition has pulled almost entirely out of the country. Even Gen. Joseph Dunford, the outgoing top commander in Afghanistan, expressed some uneasiness this month about the speed with which U.S. Special Operations troops will be pulled out of the war zone in coming years. -- That the Taliban is waiting for U.S. troops to withdraw is a long-held narrative of the Afghanistan War. It has especially been the case since late 2009, when President Obama announced a surge of tens of thousands of U.S. troops, while at the same time setting a timetable to begin withdrawing forces. -- Consider this an attempt to illustrate the varying ways it has come up, drawing on media reports over the last five years that hit the “waiting” theme: --- “Washington’s hint of an Afghanistan endgame in saying U.S. troops won’t still be there in 2017 might help win over a war-weary public, but there is no guarantee a notoriously patient Taliban won’t just wait the Americans out.” -- That’s the lede of an analytical piece published by Reuters shortly after Obama’s surge announcement in December 2009. The announcement had been less than 24 hours earlier, but there already was significant concern that setting a timetable was going to be an issue. -- “Will the Taliban hard-liners, now scenting victory, even agree to talks and, as a consequence, be prepared to dump al-Qaeda? Or will they sit out the next eighteen months waiting for the Americans to begin to leave? -- More, http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2014/07/30/the-taliban-waiting-game-in-afghanistan-mapped-by-media-since-2009/