Afghanistan

The just released Afghan opinion poll is covered in WP.

John Kerry has a piece in the Washington Post on Afghanistan strategy. It's important since he's chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Kerry is arguing for sending more US troops to Afghanistan and says that "Our goal has never been to dominate Afghanistan but... to empower Afghans to govern their country in line with their best interests and our national security."
There's a potential contradiction in there: the US goal is to have Afghans govern in line with their interests and US national security. So what happens if what Afghans want is not the same as what US national security requires? It seems the latter trumps the former: indeed, in the just released poll, only 18% of Afghans want an increase in US troops, a quite small percentage. But Kerry is going against that, calling for 30,000 more troops. Goodbye governing according to Afghans' best interests; US government interests are what counts.
Opposition between US government interests and the wishes of other countries' populations has been a recurring theme in postwar history. Once again, in this specific case, the US is weak politically (if a vote was taken in Afghanistan on the surge, it would never be accepted by Afghans, so the poll tells us)--therefore, to achieve its goals, it needs to bypass democratic methods.