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As US Admiral Mike Mullen, Chair of the joint Chiefs of staff is in the middle of a surprise visit to Afghanistan, Taliban militants have been busy – over a dozen Afghan police have been killed over 24 hours in apparently coordinated attacks in a southern and a northern province. The violence is part of an ongoing pattern in a country where the US has just announced a decision to send tens of thousands of additional troops. President Obama said in an interview on Sunday that the troop decision was the hardest he has had to make during the first year of his presidency. But writer and analyst Chris Toesing thinks the surge will not work and that it will only result in more violence. He says that comparisons to Iraq where violence has resurfaced underscores the impending failure of the President’s strategy in Afghanistan. Toensing also writes that stability in Afghanistan will only come after “national political reconciliation” and the establishment of a credible government and that from the beginning of the invasion in 2001, US actions have undermined its public commitment to fostering a democratically elected government in Afghanistan. The most recent example of this was the Obama administration’s weak response to the fraudulent reelection of Hamid Karzai.

GUEST: Chris Toesing is the Executive Director of the Middle East Research and Information Project.