Pakistan is entering a slow-motion civil war, with its armed forces on one side, and its elected politicians and most Pakistanis on the other.
The Pakistani military believes we are behind the civilian efforts to rein them in.
If we are to get out of Afghanistan any time soon, we don't need an Afghan democratic state. My goals for Afghanistan have never been that high. Within Afghanistan, we just need governments at the national and provincial levels that are strong enough to keep terrorists at bay. With our troops, we can do that indefinitely the way things are now. We don't want to do this indefinitely. So in order to make sure our side's Afghans are strong enough to beat Taliban and al Qaeda, we need to make sure the enemy is weaker than our guys.
We've strengthened the Afghan security forces and we've hammered the enemy inside Afghanistan in the south. So far, so good. We are now moving east to confront the Taliban there and eliminate the last major concentration of Taliban who can draw support from Pakistan's border regions. If we are as successful in the east as we appear to be in the south (and the rest of the country doesn't have significant Taliban presence), in theory we can reduce our troop strength and stand behind Afghans as they keep the pressure on a weakened Taliban.
At some point, I want our troops strength in Afghanistan low enough that we could resupply them from the air alone if all else fails. I don't sleep well when I contemplate so many of our troops in landlocked Afghanistan without secure supply lines. We're better off now than in 2009 since we have additional insecure supply lines to the north that Russia can cut rather than just the single insecure line through Pakistan that the Pakistanis can cut if it suits them, but it still isn't ideal, to say the least.
And we've even hammered the enemy leadership in their Pakistan sanctuary. But the sanctuary still endures and although we may have hurt the enemy enough for now, if we leave they can rebuild if the conditions are right. I did mention we don't want to be fighting there indefinitely. That includes waging a drone war over Pakistan's tribal territories to keep the enemy off balance. Remember that the Taliban failed to destroy the Northern Alliance in their 1990s civil war, and in October 2001, we enabled the Northern Alliance to reopen the civil war and march on Kabul.
Ultimately, we need Pakistan to control their border and defeat their jihadis to keep them from destabilizing Afghanistan. That's the major problem now--"their" jihadis. Pakistan's military likes to keep their pet jihadis alive as an option to make sure Afghanistan can be a rear area in case of war with India. And as long as their pet jihadis survive, they can support fellow jihadis inside Afghanistan. And if they can support their fellow jihadis in Afghanistan, they can potentially take over Kabul or just set up a sanctuary inside Afghanistan to resume plotting against us.
If the civilians win the crisis, they might force the military to suppress their jihadis.
If the military wins the crisis, they could continue business as usual or revert to pre-9/11 support knowing that we will leave Afghanistan.
If the crisis dissolves into civil war, we risk the jihadis taking over in the chaos and getting a bunch of nukes--or just getting one without taking over. At the very least, while the civil war rages the tribal areas will be ignored while the military assets contest the populated areas, leaving the jihadis room to rebuild. We might have a green light on drone strikes while the Pakistanis are busy in the lowlands, but without Pakistan's ground forces, that will just buy time.
And of course, if we side with the status quo we just risk driving more Pakistanis to side with jihadis who will promise to erase the corruption of the Pakistani ruling elites in the military and push aside the politicians who failed to rein in the military.
Democracy in Iraq matters. It doesn't as much in Afghanistan. There I just want to keep bad things from happening. But Afghanistan's fate is tied up in what happens in Pakistan. And lots of bad things can happen in Pakistan.
