What the Hell. Why try to retain even a scrap of credibility overseas?
When the United States first suggested that all options would be considered when it came to a long-term security agreement with Afghanistan -- including leaving no U.S. forces on the ground after 2014 -- it was seen as bluster.
But as talks drag on, the "zero option" is beginning to look increasingly realistic.
I never assumed that talk of a zero option was bluster. Does anybody remember Iraq? By the end of 2011 we just left after the administration just went through the motions of trying to get an agreement with Iraqis to keep some American troops in Iraq.
So yeah, the zero option is looking more likely. If you like your Taliban, you can keep it. Period. What a shock.
Too many Americans think our effort has been futile and that we should just leave. That is not true.
Afghans have made progress in being able to fight, but Afghans still need us:
Afghan security forces are now successfully providing security for their own people, fighting their own battles, and holding the gains made by the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in the last decade. This is a fundamental shift in the course of the conflict. The Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) have seen their capabilities expand rapidly since 2009, while insurgent territorial influence and kinetic capabilities have remained static. During the 2012 fighting season, ISAF led the fight against the insurgency, helping to put the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GIRoA) firmly in control of all of Afghanistan’s major cities
and 34 provincial capitals. During the 2013 fighting season, the ANSF led the fight, and have consolidated GIRoA’s control of Afghanistan’s urban areas. ...
ISAF continues to provide the ANSF with significant advising and enabling support, such as airlift and close air support (CAS). This enabling support will decline through 2014, and will be difficult for the ANSF to fully replace. ANSF capabilities are not yet fully self-sustainable, and considerable effort will be required to make progress permanent. After 2014, ANSF sustainability will be at high risk without continued aid from the international community and continued Coalition force assistance including institutional advising. With assistance, however, the ANSF will remain on a path towards an enduring ability to overmatch the Taliban.
Yes, Afghanistan still needs our help. This does not mean that Afghanistan's government isn't real. Britain and France needed our help to fight Libya. France needed our help to fight in Mali. South Korea still needs our help to command a war of the scale that a war with North Korea would be.
So the mere fact that Afghanistan can't carry out every capability to fight the Taliban (and keep al Qaeda down) doesn't mean our war there was futile, and it doesn't mean that the Taliban will win (so why bother staying?). Our actions still tip the balance between winning and losing.
Why our president hasn't used his touted oratorical powers to raise American support for the war he escalated twice is beyond me. Why did he send more Americans to fight and die in Afghanistan if he doesn't want to win?
And as we built up the Afghan forces to take on the day-to-day fighting, we have also knocked down our enemies to help make the problem more manageable:
Several years of attacks by American and Afghan Special Forces, along with growing use of UAVs, have hurt the Haqqani Network in eastern Afghanistan. It’s reached the point where one of the most powerful tribes in the area (the Zadran, which the Haqqani family belongs to) has openly cut its ties with the Islamic terrorist group. There are very practical reasons for the split. For one thing, the Haqqani Network has become more bandit than Islamic radical defenders of Islam. ...
The American attacks on the Haqqani Network were part of a larger campaign to shut down al Qaeda. The Haqqani Network is largely Afghan and is not known to carry out attacks outside of Afghanistan, while al Qaeda has international ambitions. But the U.S. now believes that al Qaeda has just about disappeared in Pakistan and Afghanistan, especially since the death of leader Osama bin Laden in 2011. A long-time ally of al Qaeda in Pakistan, the Haqqani Network is now seen as a larger threat, especially in Afghanistan. So for the last two years the pressure has been on the Haqqani Network.
Of course, any particular battle against al Qaeda and jihadis--whether in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Mali, the Philippines, Somalia, and even in Syria if things go very badly there--is not going to be the decisive battle against Islamist ideology. These battles are simply holding actions that can cripple organized jihadis but which don't keep the jihadis from regenerating from the large portions of Islamic society that provide the eager recruits for jihad. To win this Long War, Moslem (and especially Arab Moslem) countries have to make the Islamist ideology an illegitimate form of Islam and just a fringe part of their society.
But the battles are absolutely vital to win in order to keep our homes and society safe until the larger war can be won. We have won a battle in Afghanistan. Just as we won a battle in Iraq. We should be capable of investing the relatively tiny amounts of effort to defend our gains to keep us from seeing our gains reversed.
We left Iraq in another "zero option" and now jihadis are regenerating there and even flowing into Syria to complicate the civil war raging there. Is the Obama administration really willing to risk the same thing in Afghanistan?
UPDATE: Strategypage notes that the drug gangs are a big part of the Taliban problem now:
Drugs also determine where the Taliban are most dangerous. Most Taliban activity occurs in two (Kandahar and Helmand) of the 34 provinces. Some 40 percent of the Taliban violence is in ten Kandahar and Helmand districts (out of 398 in the entire country). Why that concentration of Taliban activity? It’s because of the heroin. The Taliban put most of their effort into protecting the districts where some 90 percent of the heroin in Afghanistan is produced. The other areas cursed with Taliban presence are ones that smuggling routes (to get the heroin to the outside world) go through. The Taliban don’t like to talk about this and they terrorize local media to stay away from it. International media avoid it as well, but on the ground it’s all about drugs and the huge amount of cash they provide for the drug gangs and their Taliban partners.
In some ways, it's a "mission accomplished" moment. We really have pounded the Taliban and al Qaeda and related jihadis. The problem is that the problem evolves. Now the insurgents and terrorists who are left are lifted up by the money from the Heroin production trade.
And so we have to embark on a new--but lower cost--mission of supporting Afghan forces. They can succeed but they need our help to stay in the field:
So far this year casualties among foreign troops in Afghanistan have declined 59 percent while those for Afghan soldiers and police are up 79 percent. The Afghan security forces are beating the Taliban and drug gangs in combat, but are losing the will to fight. That is largely caused by the bribes and threats (against families or the danger of commanders being assassinated). A growing number of police and army units have made lucrative (for the police and soldiers) peace deals with the bad guys. There are only 87,000 foreign troops left in the country and four times as many Afghan soldiers and police. The Afghans took over day-to-day security duties in most of the country this year and will have it all by this time next year.
Even though the enemy's morale is hurting because they haven't stomped on the Afghan security forces as they expected this year (the Taliban kept telling themselves once we are gone all would be fine), our side is paying the price for fighting hard. Knowing we have their back will keep our side in the fight.
Remember, it is always easier to see the problems on our side than it is to see the enemy's problems. If the enemy is cutting deals, it's because they feel the pressure, too. If not, they'd press the Afghan security forces to achieve victory rather than seek unofficial peace deals.
Let's not walk away from Afghanistan in the mistaken belief that we would be cutting our losses rather than deciding to lose.
