Richard Haass argues that the Afghanistan conflict has become a war of choice. Now, however, with a friendly government in Kabul, is our military presence still a necessity?Of course, our interests in Afghanistan include making it difficult for Al Qaeda to mount operations from that country and limiting Taliban use of Afghan territory to destabilize neighboring Pakistan. Minimizing the chance of a terrorist attack on American citizens is vital, as is making sure that Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.But even if the United States were to succeed in Afghanistan — with “success” defined as bringing into existence an Afghan government strong enough to control most of its territory — terrorists could still operate from there and would put down roots elsewhere. And Pakistan’s future would remain uncertain at best.The key problem with the U.S. AfPak strategy is that the White House has yet to enunciate an end-state that is dramatically different from the status quo, except that their strategy will require a much larger commitment of U.S. resources to maintain the current state of affairs. Everything seems to rest on the ability of the international community to make the Afghan government effective and legitimate in the eyes of its people. Yesterday's election will be a step in the right direction, but its not clear to anyone that enough can be done to stabilize the country for the government to survive U.S. military withdrawal, or if the government's survival is necessary to the "disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda" goal enunciated by the president. As Matt says, everything is so in flux that it's hard to even do the cost-benefit analysis required for such a war of choice.
-- Tim Fernholz Flickr photo of Afghans waiting to vote courtesy Rybolov.
