Anthony Cordesman, whom I’ve found to be consistently a purveyor of sound advice on Iraq and Afghanistan, evaluates the situation in both places:
No one can return from the battlefields in Iraq and Afghanistan, as I recently did, without believing that these are wars that can still be won. They are also clearly wars that can still be lost, but visits to the battlefield show that these conflicts are very different from the wars being described in American political campaigns and most of the debates outside the United States.
These conflicts involve far more than combat between the United States and its allies against insurgent movements such as al-Qaeda in Iraq and the Taliban. Meaningful victory can come only if tactical military victories end in ideological and political victories and in successful governance and development. Dollars are as important as bullets, and so are political accommodation, effective government services and clear demonstrations that there is a future that does not need to be built on Islamist extremism.
The military situations in Iraq and Afghanistan are very different. The United States and its allies are winning virtually every tactical clash in both countries. In Iraq, however, al-Qaeda is clearly losing in every province. It is being reduced to a losing struggle for control of Nineveh and Mosul. There is a very real prospect of coalition forces bringing a reasonable degree of security if decisions such as Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s announcement Friday to extend his militia’s cease-fire six months continue over a period of years.
Military victory is far more marginal in Afghanistan. NATO and international troops can still win tactically, but the Taliban is sharply expanding its support areas as well as its political and economic influence and control in Afghanistan. It has scored major gains in Pakistan, which is clearly the more important prize for al-Qaeda and has more Pashtuns than Afghanistan. U.S. commanders privately warn that victory cannot be attained without more troops, without all members of NATO and the International Security Assistance Force fully committing their troops to combat, and without a much stronger and consistent effort by the Pakistani army in both the federally administered tribal areas in western Pakistan and the Baluchi area in the south.
He concludes on a somber note:
What the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan have in common is that it will take a major and consistent U.S. effort throughout the next administration at least to win either war. Any American political debate that ignores or denies the fact that these are long wars is dishonest and will ensure defeat. There are good reasons that the briefing slides in U.S. military and aid presentations for both battlefields don’t end in 2008 or with some aid compact that expires in 2009. They go well beyond 2012 and often to 2020.
If the next president, Congress and the American people cannot face this reality, we will lose. Years of false promises about the speed with which we can create effective army, police and criminal justice capabilities in Iraq and Afghanistan cannot disguise the fact that mature, effective local forces and structures will not be available until 2012 and probably well beyond. This does not mean that U.S. and allied force levels cannot be cut over time, but a serious military and advisory presence will probably be needed for at least that long, and rushed reductions in forces or providing inadequate forces will lead to a collapse at the military level.
That, in a nutshell, is the reason that I opposed the invasions of both countries. I thought it was obvious that once we had invaded in order to achieve any objective worth the level of money and lives we’d expend we’d be in for the long haul both in Iraq and in Afghanistan and, as I took the temperature of the American public, they hadn’t signed on for that.
At the very least the next administration, whomever is elected, will be tried by Iraq and Afghanistan and I suspect our military involvement in both places will last for many adminstrations to come.
The essence of leadership is the ability to convince people that doing what they do not desire, but which is right, is worthwhile. In that respect, President Bush has been a miserable leader, despite making the right calls on what to do far more often than not. Indeed, by metrics like those of B.H. Liddell-Hart, Bush would have to rank among the few truly great grand strategists the world has seen (in company with Alexander or Belisarius); yet he may fail, after he has left office, for the lack of explaining to the US why we are fighting the way we are fighting and where we are fighting and for how long. The decisions, I think, were good; the explanations, when they came at all, were worthless.
In the end you have to muster support for the policy.