In the short run, it’s difficult to see how last week’s election will have any effect on the ongoing passion play that is our Afghan War. Whatever else may be said about Congress becoming much more right wing, it certainly isn’t going to increase pressure on President Obama to get the fuck out of there with all possible speed. Even if we do begin to withdraw troops next July, a prospect from which NATO is poised to flee at its upcoming meeting, there will still be Americans fighting and dying when the calendar turns over to 2012 and we get into the true presidential silly season.
I’ve long been a believer that the war is more about politics in America than it is about combat in Afghanistan. At this point, that war has almost nothing to do with the 2001 attacks that launched it. It, like Iraq and Vietnam before it, has become a bleeding symbol of American pride. Unlike those other wars, however, Afghanistan has not yet grown so burdensome that we cannot afford it.
Vietnam and Iraq forced their own conclusions, the military simply could no longer maintain the levels of force it deemed necessary.* In both cases, the Army was cracking at a very fundamental level and the only option was withdrawal, no matter how thin the face saving fig leaves. That hasn’t happened yet in Afghanistan, nor is it likely to any time soon. Even after Obama’s reinforcements, our presence there is less than half of what it was in Iraq, and less than a third of what Iraq and Afghanistan were combined through most of the last decade. However much it trashes our budget, however tragic the steady trickle of dead and wounded, these are far more sustainable troop levels.
Looking ahead, both to the election of 2012 and the ever receding horizon of Afghan withdrawal, American public opinion appears to be the only force on earth strong enough to reign in the war. NATO countries seem willing to follow the lead of our government, however anathema that course of action is to their own populaces. Here’s Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Friday at the G-20 summit:
Mr Harper said on Thursday he would “reluctantly” deploy military trainers until 2014 to help Afghan forces.
Canada’s combat troops are mandated by parliament to return home in 2011.
Mr Harper spoke on Friday on the sidelines of meetings with G20 leaders in South Korea.
“If you are going to put troops into combat into a war situation, I do think for the sake of legitimacy, I do think the government does require the support of parliament,” Mr Harper said.
“But when we’re talking simply about technical or training missions, I think that is something the executive can do on its own.”
After several days of not discussing the matter, Mr Harper confirmed on Thursday that some Canadian troops would remain in Afghanistan past the 2011 withdrawal date, saying he had made the decision reluctantly.
What that means is that the war is going to go on until the American public votes against it, the way we voted against Iraq in 2006 and 2008. The question is when that happens. Could it happen in 2012? Or will it take until 2014 or 2016?
For it to happen in 2012, two things would be necessary. The first would be a truly bellicose Red nominee. It’s a safe bet that whoever the Reds nominate next year will be pro-war in general. The question is whether or not he (sorry, Sarah) will thump the lectern about Blue cowardice in Afghanistan. It seems unlikely that the public will suddenly go sweet on the war between now and then, so a Red nominee who can be painted as wanting four more years of war could be an electoral asset to Obama.
The second thing would be for the war to actually be an issue. Foreign wars are terrible things, but a lack of jobs at home is even worse. If Americans aren’t working, it will scarcely matter how many Afghans we kill.
Absent those two conditions, Afghanistan can’t get the kind of political traction it needs in 2012. As for 2014 and 2016, well, who can say? Empty protestations of honor and national security will not prevent the war from festering. So long as the carnage and the costs can continue to be borne by a small segment of the country without any intemperate drama for the majority, we can stay there forever. The military sliver of America will fight, bleed and die; the rest of us will fund it, and the politicians who are afraid of being seen as losers will be content to let it continue. It’s our war until we vote to end it.
*Had McCain won the election, we wouldn’t be nearly as far along in our escape from Mesopotamia, we might even be nominally committed to staying indefinitely, but there’s no way we would still have Bush-era numbers there. We just don’t have enough troops.
