A good question

Andrew Bacevich, professor of history and international relations at Boston University, and one of the most respected conservative foreign policy experts in the country, and deservedly so, offers this question for our commitments in Afghanistan.

What alternatives other than open-ended war might enable the United States to achieve its limited interests in Afghanistan?

Should Obama go 'all in' on Afghanistan?

"The really big decisions have yet to be made. The biggest of all is simply this: Is the president willing to go for broke? Is he committed to Afghanistan as Obama's war -- committed as George W. Bush was to his war in Iraq? Is he willing to pull out the stops, regardless of the obstacles ahead, despite evidence of eroding public support and disregarding the fact that many in his own party oppose the war outright?

Obama's advisors -- Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Michael Mullen and Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander on the ground in Afghanistan -- have been quite candid in arguing that half-measures won't suffice. The war is going badly. The Taliban is gaining in strength. Seven-plus years of allied efforts in Afghanistan have accomplished very little.

Even if the military's recently rediscovered catechism of counterinsurgency provides the basis for a new strategy, turning things around will take a very long time -- five to 10 years at least. Achieving success (however vaguely defined) will entail the expenditure of vast resources: treasure (no one will say how much) and, of course, blood (again, no one offers an estimate).

So the president faces a real challenge if he intends to make the case for starting from scratch in Afghanistan. To persuade the American people to buy in, he will have to reassure them on five points:

* Afghanistan constitutes a vital national security interest -- victory in this primitive, impoverished, landlocked and distant country will contribute materially to driving a stake through the heart of violent jihadism.

* Armed nation-building -- securing the Afghan population, developing the economy, building legitimate institutions, eliminating corruption and drug trafficking -- provides the most realistic and effective way to satisfy those interests.

* The failure of past efforts by other great powers to impose their will on Afghanistan is beside the point -- history has no relevant lessons to teach.

* The United States possesses the money, troops, expertise and will to get the job done -- notwithstanding the recession, the mushrooming deficit, the diminishing enthusiasm of our allies, the stress and strain already endured by U.S. forces and the uneven performance of government agencies in the analogous U.S. effort to "fix" Iraq.

* No other priorities, foreign or domestic, exist that outrank Afghanistan and should have first call on the resources that years of additional war will consume -- several hundred billion dollars and several hundred additional American lives by a conservative estimate.

Driving home these five propositions will require Obama to deploy all of his formidable powers of persuasion. Even if he manages to do so, he will then spend the rest of his presidency -- as the bills mount and the body count climbs -- defending and reaffirming them. As was the case with Harry Truman in Korea, Lyndon Johnson in Vietnam and Bush in Iraq, war will hold his presidency hostage.

Obama does not act impulsively. Before betting his remaining chips on Afghanistan, he will no doubt deliberate carefully. He will consult. He will sift through all the evidence. Yet before hitting the 'start over' button on Afghanistan, he would do well to consider the following: Sometimes the essence of leadership is not to render the right decision but to pose the right question."

It's an excellent read. And an excellent question.

I am convinced, like Michael O'Hanlon and I would imagine Andrew would agree, that any solution will involve some military presence. Like Iraq, if better security is not guaranteed to a new Afghan democracy, it is no guarantee that democratic political institutions will survive.

But as George Will has rightly argued, I believe, in his columns favoring pull-out in Afghanistan and Iraq, if the Afghani and Iraqi populations are not willing to defend and secure those institutions out of their own commitments, then no amount of American assistance will do a damn thing.

I am convinced that the populations in both Iraq and Afghanistan do want to maintain and defend their democratic institutions and to provide security for their people. The question today, as it was when we entered this war is, do they need our help?

Andrew is right, I think, to ask us to pause and consider alternatives, especially civil society, economic and political alternatives that might better help this situation.

In both cases, what people in these countries need to be reassured of is that we are not there to impose our will. We are there, primarily, to help them secure a democratic future, if they want it. If they don't, we should leave, I believe, unless there is evidence that a substantial enough number, in fact, do and are willing to establish and defend those institutions. But if they do want to build and defend democratic institutions, then Americans need to do what we can to support them in their own efforts and to let Afghanis and Iraqis be primarily responsible for all efforts to do so, with American support.

This was the mistake in the initial invasions in both countries, I believe. Americans believing that they could help remove thuggish rulers - and I happen to believe that the impulse to do good by the Afghanis and Iraqis did substantially motivate our military interventions, there, as cock-eyed as the debate and arguments made for those interventions square with that explanation; certainly that was not the only reason we invaded each, but doing good by the Afghanis and Iraqis and by us substantially motivated most of the players involved, I believe - without consulting citizens in these countries about whether removing their governments was something they actually desired. I think in both situations we would have found many people who did want to remove these governments with no reasonable recourse to do so and which a military intervention offerred the overwhelming military capacity to do so, and which would have been trusted, more, as a self-determined choice by the Afghanis and Iraqis had we allowed them to lead that effort and backed them up with our political and economic weight and with overwhelming military force.

We chose paths of uniltateral imposition of American military power instead of pathes of collaborations with self-determining populations and we have been dealing with the consequences of those choices, I believe.

And George Will is right. If these populations do not want us there or are not willing to support and defend their own democratic instituations and the building of a more liberal democratic culture, our efforts are futile.

I believe Afghanis and Iraqis are willing to support and secure their own democratic institutions. But I agree with George that the Afghanis (and Iraqis) must lead efforts to support and defend both and with Andrew that Americans should do so with the least amount of military commitment as possible, as a matter of wise policy, where the use of force is minimized as much as possible and where the peoples we help determine their own destinies, primarily, with our support for their self-determination and not for our own agendas.

If you know where to look, the debate about Afghanistan is a refreshing alternative to the failure to debate in a similarly thoughtful way before our initial invasion in either Afghanistan or Iraq. And, curiously enough, it is liberals like Michael O'Hanlon and Bruce Reidel who argue for sustained military commitment and conservatives like Bacevich and Will who argue for caution in such commitments.

That is what makes a mature liberal democracy and mature liberal democratic debate and discussion great. People thinking outside their boxes. And for themselves. And not romanticizing power as the means to get to all the right answers. Or even most of them.

Andrew's posed a good question. Something for us to think about.