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An Afghan man walks past the empty seat of one of two Buddha statues, destroyed by the Taliban in 2001, in Bamiyan province on November 9, 2009.

We are now into year nine of the war in Afghanistan. The Taliban is out of power but still wreaks havoc, and the 68,000 U-S soldiers fighting the war face a rising death toll. Buffeted by the complex political and military situation in the region and the debate at home, President Obama faces one of the toughest decisions of his young presidency as he tries to determine the way forward in Afghanistan. AirTalk goes “on the road" to the Autry National Center for an in-depth discussion about Afghanistan with a panel of experts.

Panelists:

Adam B. Schiff, is a Democratic Congressman who represents California's 29th Congressional District, including the communities of Alhambra, Altadena, Burbank, Glendale, Griffith Park, Monterey Park, Pasadena, San Gabriel, South Pasadena, and Temple City. He holds seats on the House Appropriations Committee and the House Judiciary Committee. In early 2008 Schiff was named to a third major committee, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, in recognition of his expertise on issues related to electronic surveillance. The Committee has authorization and oversight authority over the nation's intelligence services.

Reza Aslan is an internationally acclaimed writer and scholar of religions, is a contributing editor at the Daily Beast. His most recent book is How to Win a Cosmic War: God, Globalization, and the End of the War on Terror. An edited anthology, Words Without Borders: Writings from the Middle East, will be published by Norton in 2010. Aslan's first book is the New York Times Bestseller, No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam, which has been translated into thirteen languages, short-listed for the Guardian First Book Award in the UK, and nominated for a PEN USA award for research Non-Fiction.

Kalev I. Sepp lectures at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. He’s a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and U.S. Army Special Forces officer. He wrote the 2005 Military Review article “Best Practices in Counterinsurgency” while assigned in Baghdad, and co-wrote Weapon of Choice, about U.S. special operations in Afghanistan in 2001-02, based on his on-site research there. His sons – a Marine and an Army paratrooper – both served in Iraq.