Karl Eikenberry: “After 8 years of insufficient resources and lack of focus, we risk providing a stronghold for al-Qaeda and threatening…”

There is a balance here. It's the absence of a coherent state of Afghanistan that paved the way for the rise of the Taliban and then facilitated the entry of al Qaeda.

Success for all of us in Afghanistan, of course, is the point when the Government of Afghanistan is able to provide for the security of its own people.

When we hear ourselves being called occupiers and worse, and our generous aid programs are being dismissed as totally ineffective and the source of all corruption, our pride is offended, and we begin to lose our inspiration to carry on.

I believe the course the President outlined offers the best path to stabilize Afghanistan and to ensure al-Qaeda cannot regain a foothold to plan new attacks against us.