Temporarily, that is. Even in a best case scenario you won't cut off the whole crop, and they'll plant a lot more carefully next year... and the year after that you'll be drawing down. And of course the Als will be fed infinite amounts of footage showing Americans blowing up irrigation systems, spraying herbicides on crops, and generally throwing Afghan farmers into penury. Those claims will be believed, true or not, and the beneficiary of that belief will be AQ.
So instead of fighting the Taliban we'll be fighting the entire Afghan state - nominal government, actual government, and Taliban - ... at a time when we've barely the resources to fight the Taliban.
Hasn't worked terribly well in the past... the track record of crop eradication programs is not good.
That's assuming you get all of it, which you won't... and again, the reduction will be temporary. Eradication will get harder every year - they won't stop planting, they'll just hide it more effectively - and full production will resume as soon as we draw down, which is clearly in the cards. You're likely to impose a large new burden and significant additional risk on an already overstretched force to achieve a gain that's temporary at best.
Those in the field apparently believe that seizing that opportunity would raise a hornet's nest that they don't want to deal with. I don't think either of us is in a position to say that this is not the case, or to anticipate what local reaction would be. Opinions from those who are or recently have been in the field in Afghanistan would be good to hear.
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