More War

This isn't fun, thinking about whether we should get more involved in Afghanistan.

The stakes seem pretty high. The Taliban are not nice people. In addition to treating "their own" people badly, they were, after all, the folks who gave Al Qaeda sanctuary before and after the 2001 attacks. If they return to power, we can expect more of the same. As John Kerry said in 2004, Bush took his eye "off the ball" with his Iraq invasion. We didn't finish our business with the Taliban, and now we're paying the price.

And right next door is Pakistan, a country with 50 nuclear weapons, teetering on the edge of anarachy. Right now the Taliban and Al Qaeda use Pakistan as a base to attack Afghanistan. A Taliban-ruled Afghanistan would be a base to attack Pakistan.

Meanwhile, our NATO allies are getting pretty tired of this. Trust in American leadership has been so diminished that the fact the Americans are involved is now good enough reason for some Europeans not to be involved.

What are the consequences of failure? Pretty ugly.

What are the chances of failure? Informed people, even those who support sending additional troops, admit the chance of failure is significant.

Polls are showing that Americans, by and large, want Afghanistan to "go away". They don't want to send more troops, they want American troops home. That's a very understandable position. What does that say about our chances of a sustained operation? And how much of a factor should that be in Obama's decision-making?

What are the alternatives? Pretty ugly. We could pull out entirely. We could maintain a military presence that goes after Al Qaeda and leaves the Taliban alone. Got any other ideas?

In a column that overstates the case, David Brooks wants to go for it. He points to an excellent discussion of the issues in a Stephen Biddle piece in The American Interest magazine. It's reasonably short. Go read it.

Biddle says encouraging things, like "failure is not inevitable." Oh, boy.