Saturday, August 21, 2010

This is What Success Looks Like

What about Obama's pledge, when he was selling his Afghan surge last year, that withdrawal there would begin in 2011? Here's where serious domestic politics – always the driver of foreign policy – takes over. The Democrats feel they cannot go into any election in either 2010 or 2012 and be accused of "losing" in Afghanistan. This, unlike Iraq, is Obama's war.

But the Pentagon is trying to push "success" nonetheless. In an interview last week, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said "everybody - all of our partner nations and I think everybody in this government - would agree that two things are central to success. One is building up the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), which is going pretty well, and governance, which is going, but not as well. It's still moving in the right direction, but a lot slower than we would like."

No credible reporter would endorse Gates's opinion on the zeal and efficiency of the ANSF and every credible reporter notes the utter corruption of "governance" in Afghanistan. In terms of domestic politics here in the Homeland, the US cannot quit – and will not do so by 2012 because there is zero evidence for any substantive achievement. Unlike Iraq, a victorious "surge" is not a saleable proposition as Petraeus acknowledges.

The only reliable definition of “success” in any of the United States’ martial enterprises is the effective destruction in economic, social and environmental terms of the target country. That certainly happened in Iraq and is a process far advanced in Afghanistan.