Thomas Schweich has a long and detailed article in this week's New York Times Magazine on the drug war in Afghanistan. Schweich points out that the Karzai government has been less than forthcoming with assistance in fighting poppy production because many of its supporters are in fact poppy producers; he also argues that since aerial spraying of crops has worked in Egypt and Colombia, it can also work in Afghanistan. Schweich makes the case from a counter-insurgency rather than counter-narcotics point of view: The Taliban, he argues, derives most of its revenue (and consequently its fighting ability) from the heroin trade.
Unfortunately, when he gets to solutions, his case falls utterly to pieces:
