Is Afghanistan Ever Going to “Get Better”?

In December, I wrote a post, “Afghanistan: It Seems to be Getting Better,” which now looks as ill-timed as a January prediction that the stock market wouldn’t go down.  Since my post, the Taliban has launched attacks all over Afghanistan.  In the last ten days of January, three attacks in Kabul killed more than 130 people.  “Getting Better”?  “Back into the Quagmire” some would say.

Donald Trump has reversed Barack Obama’s reduction in our forces in Afghanistan, yet things seem to be getting worse.  We had over 100,000 troops in Afghanistan under President Obama.  Why do we think the 15,000 troops we have there now (with 1,000 more going), up from 8,400 when President Obama left office, will succeed when so many more didn’t before?

Several reasons, maybe.  First, of course, is that 2018 is not 2009.  Things are different now than they were then, and maybe the number of troops we need is different.  Second, Afghanistan is not the country it was in 2009.  Maybe it can do more for itself as long as we know better how to help them.  Third, this time we haven’t pre-set a date for when we are going to leave.  The date we leave is the date the job gets done.

When President Obama took office, things were a mess in Afghanistan.  George W. Bush had focused on Iraq (successfully, at the end), but in doing so, he ignored Afghanistan.  There was a lot that needed to be done in Afghanistan, and we needed a lot of troops to do it.  President Obama sent them, though reluctantly, it seems.  While he sent 100,000 troops, he announced when they would be coming home before they even went.  Which limited what they could accomplish. 

And when we started to bring the troops home, the schedule seemed to be based more on what President Obama wanted than on what was happening on the ground.  It seemed more about President Obama being able to say he had ended two wars, than anything happening in Afghanistan.

Eventually, President Obama was forced to leave troops in Afghanistan, even though he still declared in December of 2014 that our combat mission was over.  It was as if, since he couldn’t get the troops out, he could at least say we were done fighting. 

But it didn’t work.  Like it didn’t work in Iraq.  President Bush agreed our troops would leave Iraq at the end of 2011, but there was always the option to renegotiate that date with the Iraqis.  Many Iraqis probably expected we would.  But President Obama didn’t really try to change the date.  And so we left.  And things fell apart.  And we had to go back.

Which makes you wonder if there is a parallel between Iraq and Afghanistan.  If we had really tried to stay in Iraq after 2011, and if we had been able to get Iraq to agree, might things have not gone so wrong there?  (And “go wrong” is definitely what happened in Iraq after 2011.)

Similarly, were we so focused on leaving Afghanistan, and then, when we couldn’t do that, on ending our “combat mission” there, that we cut back before it was time to do so?  Was our strategy tied to a date on the calendar instead of what was happening on the ground?

Obviously, Afghanistan is a difficult place, but it is not the place it was 180 years ago, or 35 years ago – or eight years ago.  It may be that 16,000 troops in the Afghanistan of today will be able to accomplish what needs to be done, even though the troops that were there eight years ago weren’t able to do what needed to be done in the Afghanistan of that day.  Given the possible risks of leaving Afghanistan to the Taliban, or worse, it may be something we should try.