WASHINGTON (Dispatches) – Donald Trump has announced he will prolong the U.S. military intervention in Afghanistan, which he once described as a "complete waste,” bowing to pressure from his top officials to raise the stakes once more in the 16-year conflict.
In a televised address to troops at Fort Myer in Virginia, Trump said he was setting out a new strategy for Afghanistan and South Asia. But he did not say how many more troops he would send, how long they would stay, or what their ultimate objective was.
Trump repeatedly presented his ideas for South Asia as a radical departure from the Obama administration, with a tighter focus on counter-terrorism.
But the Fort Myer speech suggested that the tasks facing U.S. soldiers and diplomats in the region would remain the same.
The Trump White House has already given the Pentagon authority to deploy another 4,000 more troops to bolster the 8,400 there already and vice-president Mike Pence was reported to have told Congress that 3,900 extra soldiers would be sent.
In a separate statement, Pentagon chief James Mattis said he had ordered U.S. military chiefs to "make preparations to carry out the president’s strategy” and that he would be talking to NATO allies, "several of which have also committed to increasing their troop numbers.”
Trump scarcely mentioned Afghanistan during last year’s election campaign, but prior to entering the presidential race, he had vociferously argued for withdrawal.
As part of a regional approach, Trump said he would encourage India to play more of a role. However, he did not mention another, increasingly important player in Afghanistan, China.
Former officials and analysts pointed out that the fear of a greater Indian presence in Afghanistan was the justification used by Pakistan’s military and intelligence leaders to maintain backing for Afghan militants, as a buffer against Indian influence.
Josh Rovner, associate professor at the School of International Service at American University described the invitation to India to get more involved as "puzzling”, arguing it "may encourage Pakistan to invest more in armed groups.”
Barnett Rubin, a senior advisor on Afghanistan and Pakistan in the Obama administration, called the speech: "An incoherent wish list unmoored in political reality or principle.”
Trump made one glaring factual error in the speech, referring to the Afghan leader, Ashraf Ghani, as prime minister, rather than president.
Rubin, now a senior fellow at New York University’s Centre on International Cooperation, argued the gaffe disproved Trump’s claim to have studied the problem deeply and showed "no understanding of the basis of the National Unity Government.”
Trump, however, won the praise of military hawks in Congress, including Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham who hailed the decision.
"I commend President Trump for taking a big step in the right direction with the new strategy for Afghanistan,” said McCain, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee. "I believe the president is now moving us well beyond the prior administration's failed strategy of merely postponing defeat.”
On Fox News, Graham said he was "proud” of Trump. "President Trump has the smarts and the moral courage to listen to his generals and take their advice rather than go the political way,” he said.
Congressional Democrats, though, blasted what they viewed as an open-ended commitment by Trump without clear parameters.
The President’s announcement is low on details but raises serious questions,” said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. "When President Trump says there will be no ceiling on the number of troops and no timeline for withdrawal, he is declaring an open-ended commitment of American lives with no accountability to the American people.”
 A spokesman for the Taliban condemned the decision, saying "as long as there is even one American solder in our country," the insurgents would continue their fight.
"Instead of continuing of war in Afghanistan, Americans should have thought about withdrawing their soldiers from Afghanistan," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement.

Mineral Riches

Trump is eyeing Afghanistan’s mineral wealth to help pay for the 16-year war, Reuters reported. Investors who have studied the country, one of the world’s most dangerous, say that is a pipe dream, the news agency added.
Ever since a United States Geological Survey study a decade ago identified deposits later estimated to have a potential value of as much as $1 trillion, both Afghan and foreign officials have trumpeted the reserves as a likely key to economic independence for Afghanistan.
As well as deposits of gold, silver and platinum, Afghanistan has significant quantities of iron ore, uranium, zinc, tantalum, bauxite, coal, natural gas and significant copper – a particular draw given the dearth of rich new copper mines globally.
Afghanistan, some reports say, even has the potential to become "the Saudi Arabia of lithium,” thanks to deposits of the raw material used in phone and electric car batteries.
But a lack of basic logistics – paved roads and rail links needed to export copper concentrate or iron ore – pervasive corruption, a messy bureaucracy and a growing insurgency that has left much of the country beyond the writ of the Kabul government have stifled attempts to a build a legitimate mining sector.
Much of the basic data dates back to the Soviet occupation in the 1980s. And the cost of having foreign geologists and engineers visit remote sites to carry out new surveys is prohibitive when nothing is yet being produced to pay for it.
"There is no low-hanging fruit that could trigger rapid growth and foster self-sustaining development,” said the government’s own National Peace and Development Framework document, presented at last year’s donor conference in Brussels.
Major projects such as the Mes Aynak copper mine, being developed by a Chinese consortium, remain at a standstill.
"There is zero active mining and very little exploration, if any,” says Leigh Fogelman, director at merchant bank Hannam & Partners based in London.
The bank’s founder, former JP Morgan rainmaker Ian Hannam, has been a long-time investor in Afghanistan through the Afghan Gold and Minerals Company.
AGMC won the license for another copper deposit, at Balkhab in northern Afghanistan, in 2012.
For the rest, resources have been prey to what William Byrd, a development economist with the United States Institute of Peace, has dubbed "industrial-scale looting.”
While small and medium-sized mines do exist, many are outside government control, profiting powerful local operators and depriving the treasury of what the government estimates at $300 million in unpaid taxes. "The big mining opportunities are just languishing and there’s looting of smaller resources everywhere,” Byrd said.
As Afghan officials sought to raise interest in Afghanistan with the incoming U.S. administration earlier this year, they pushed the idea of the mineral reserves.
"President Trump is keenly interested in Afghanistan’s economic potential,” Hamdullah Mohib, Afghanistan’s ambassador to Washington, told Reuters in June. "Our estimated $1 trillion in copper, iron ore, rare earth elements, aluminum, gold, silver, zinc, mercury and lithium. That’s new.”