With General Stanley McChrystal finishing his 60-day Afghanistan military policy review, the main headline has been speculation that he will request more troops. The BBC speculates , “This report does not mention increasing troop numbers – that is for another report later in the year – but the hints are all there.”

While Washington and Brussels brace for a troop request above and beyond the more than 100,000 U.S. and NATO troops already there, the underlying question is the one that really matters: What is success in Afghanistan, and what is it worth in blood and treasure?

Afghanistan was once viewed as the good war. Iraq symbolized the imperial extension of American power, while Afghanistan symbolized the necessary use of American power in the national defense. Richard Haass famously called Iraq the “war of choice” and Afghanistan the “war of necessity,” but in a recent New York Times op-ed , Haass signaled a potentially significant shift in establishment foreign policy thinking by labeling the Afghan war now a war of choice.

In declaring this, Haass defined success in Afghanistan as “bringing into existence an Afghan government strong enough to control most of its territory” and wrote that there are “alternatives to current American policy” to achieve this goal. He is quick to point out that labeling Afghanistan a war of choice doesn’t make it “good” or “bad,” but rather begs the question of “whether military involvement would probably accomplish more than it would cost and whether employing force is more promising than the alternatives.”

On the side of making a significant, continuing American commitment to Afghanistan, we must consider the delicate balance between Pakistan and India in the country, the potential basing of al Qaeda, the massive opium trade, the possible return of Taliban control in Kabul, and the numerous humanitarian concerns. By toppling the government, we assumed responsibility not just to Afghanistan but to Central Asia, and abandoning it at this point would seriously harm U.S. interests in the region, including energy resources and terrorism, for decades.

Conversely, even if we find a way to eliminate the possibility of the return of al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, they could continue to base across the border in the minimally governed Federally Administered Tribal Area of Pakistan where they currently operate out of. And if not there, they could move to Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, or any number of failed or semi-failed African states. After all, that’s the nature of transnational terrorism, it doesn’t depend on sanctuary any one particular nation, just one somewhere.

Further, there is no strategic resource in Afghanistan, such as oil, that makes it inherently in the national interest as there is in Iraq, and there are few American investments there, even now. And most importantly, we don’t know that we can succeed there even if we commit a large amount of troops and aid for an extended period of time.

George Will wrote yesterday that the prospects for success in Afghanistan are too remote. If success requires hundreds of thousands of troops stationed there for perhaps a decade, then Will believes that to be “inconceivable.” Will proposes a similar reduced strategy to what Haass proposed, with far fewer troops limited to drone and Special Forces strikes.

But the light at the end of the tunnel doesn’t have to be a decade away. Gen. McChrystal’s report estimates that the Afghan National Army won’t be ready to lead for three more years. If our continued military commitment to Afghanistan for that limited period of time, along with the new development and diplomatic strategies and new leadership of the Obama Administration, can greatly increase the chance of leaving an independent Afghanistan capable of self-governance, then that may be a commitment well worth making. Given the real interests the U.S. has there, and the change in strategy only still being implemented by a new U.S. Administration, a continued commitment to improving security and humanitarian in Afghanistan is well worth our while…for now.

Related posts:

1. The War Within the War in Afghanistan
2. Now is the time for a national debate
3. Once more unto the Afghanistan breach, dear friends, once more
4. Haass and Wars of Choice
5. Possible bipartisan principles on Afghanistan?