No option looks good

Some time in the next few weeks the Obama administration is going to make some hard decisions on the war in Afghanistan.

The president is being advised by his top military advisors that:

1) More troops are needed to prevent an outright defeat of U.S and allied forces.

2) A withdrawal or a defeat would be a disaster for the U.S.

Both of those statements are correct, but two previous world powers, the British Empire and the Soviet Union, were never able to control the country (in fact, the last person to do so may have been Alexander the Great).

The Obama administration wants to bring Afghanistan into the 21st century. The Taliban wants to bring it into the 14th century. And weirdly, the Taliban are winning the "hearts and minds" of the population.

During the original invasion of Afghanistan, a revenge strike for the Taliban government's role in the 9/11 attacks, the United States had them on the run. Then we got "distracted" by Iraq, allowing the Taliban to regroup.

Today, they control more than two-thirds of the country. And in a nation where switching sides is an art form, some of our previous "allies" among the tribal leaders have either gone over to supporting the Taliban or become "neutrals" in the conflict.

There is a huge difference between Iraq and Afghanistan. Iraq was a fairly modern country. Our policy of rebuilding schools and other infrastructure helped a great deal. They were things the people there wanted and expected. But in Afghanistan, they don't seem to want schools and don't apparently even believe in them (or modern sewage systems, either). Trying to drag that country, kicking and screaming, into the modern world could easily take more than a generation -- a time frame Americans are unlikely to embrace.

And there are some disturbing parallels with Vietnam, in particular having the U.S. prop up a corrupt government with little legitimacy or support from the general population. There are times when our concern for "democracy" actually gets in the way of our foreign policy objectives. Imposing an interim government, closely monitored and controlled to weed out corruption, may have been a better alternative in the short run.

Like Vietnam, there also seems to be little strategy beyond "kill as many of the bad guys as possible." Obama is making the same mistake Bush did -- failing to identify a clear "exit strategy."

In the end, we suspect Obama will listen to his advisors and send in more troops, which means more U.S. casualties. In addition, he is likely to come up with a new "definition of victory" that may give us an out, even if it means we won't accomplish the basic goal of creating a stable, democratic, modern nation.

But right now, we're not making any serious headway against the Taliban or their al-Queda puppetmasters and unless we pour in as many or more troops than we sent to Iraq we'll probably, at best, achieve a stalemate.

So the long-term options seem to boil down to either a massive, generational presence in Afghanistan (with a constant drain on lives and treasure), or a redefinition of "victory" that will get us out without too much loss of face (and leave the problem of a haven for terrorists intact). Both options seem unpalatable. But that's the reality of what we face.

Sometimes, the only choices you have are bad ones.

-- Kelly Everitt