‘Exit strategy’

“If we put 30,000 additional troops into Baghdad, it will quell some of the violence short term. I don’t think there is any doubt about that. ... But that won’t solve Iraq’s critical political problems.” These words, uttered by then-presidential candidate Barack Obama in August 2007, predicted abject failure in the wake of the “surge” implemented by former President George W. Bush.

On the contrary, as it so happens, Bush’s Mesopotamian misadventure has proven quite the success – provided that simmering regional tensions don’t boil over and compel Kurds and Arabs to take up arms against one another once we make our long-overdue exit.

In any case, the U.S.-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement ensures our departure by 2011’s end. Mission accomplished.

That reaching this point has taken the better part of a decade, however, necessarily begs the question: At what cost – economic, human and diplomatic – has this war been won? The answer is less than encouraging; $684 billion, 4,331 dead American soldiers and an unquantifiable amount of squandered diplomatic capital later, and this victory is a markedly hollow one.

Which brings us to our latest puerile preoccupation halfway across the globe: Afghanistan. By some extraordinary twist of fate, a president who repeatedly (and rightfully) criticized the Bush administration’s indeterminate commitment to Iraq has inexplicably decided to follow his predecessor’s example in Afghanistan.

A fresh coat of paint and new window dressings fail to disguise the fact Obama’s “new strategy” in Afghanistan is couched in the very principles that influenced Bush’s strategy in Iraq: a massive commitment to rebuilding a failed state with no discernable victory conditions, no timetable for withdrawal and little to no consideration for the costs of continued engagement.

And, as far as costs are concerned, Afghanistan promises to be a genuine money pit.
The United States has already spent about eight years, $223 billion in military spending and tens of billions more in civilian aid attempting to fix Afghanistan. Military analysts predict that, given the war’s unique challenges and complexities, Americans can expect at least another decade’s involvement in Afghanistan and a bill that will dwarf that of the Iraq war.

Will this latest surge work in Afghanistan? Although only time will tell, as was much of the case in Iraq, the result promises nonetheless to be one of great expense and little consequence.

Traditional threats such as nation-states are inherently confined and, therefore, identifiable by their borders. Terrorists, meanwhile, lack such limitations. So long as there exist economically depressed and poorly managed states – and those are certainly in no short supply – there will likewise be no shortage of terrorists.

Shut down Al-Qaida in Kandahar; watch them open shop in Mogadishu.

The United States’ current Sisyphean strategy toward counterinsurgency – the wholesale invasion of other states to root out non-state actors – seemingly ignores this reality and, as such, has proven largely ineffective and exorbitantly expensive.
Unless the United States truly intends to instigate regime change the world over, it’s time to prepare an exit strategy.