The Larger Issue

The firestorm over a Rolling Stone article in which Gen. Stanley McChrystal and his aides derided President Barack Obama and most of his national security team was predictable. So was Obama's decision to remove McChrystal as leader of U.S. forces in Afghanistan. The spectacle of an insolent general mocking the civilians responsible for overseeing the Pentagon is unacceptable. Especially since McChrystal already had a huge black mark on his record — he helped orchestrate the cover-up of the "friendly-fire" death of NFL-star-turned-Army-Ranger Pat Tillman in Afghanistan in 2004 — we do not lament his exit.

But there needs to be a focus on the larger issue raised by the article and so much other recent news out of Afghanistan: Is the U.S. losing the war — and is it, in conventional terms, a winnable war?

We have deep admiration and respect for America's armed forces. We should not put them in harm's way without justification. After nearly nine years of war in Afghanistan — with 1,000-plus Americans killed — there are reasons to question whether we will ever realize our goal of creating a stable, unified nation that is inhospitable to Islamic extremists.

Yes, the "surge" strategy created by Gen. David Petraeus that brought improvements in Iraq should be given a chance in Afghanistan. Some 30,000 U.S. troops are being added to present forces, and the theory is this will have the same calming and productive effect seen in Iraq, allowing Obama to proceed with his plan to begin withdrawing U.S.

forces in July 2011.

Yet there are crucial differences between the two. Iraq has a history as a functioning, modern nation state with a literate population. Afghanistan does not. Instead, it is desperately poor, is fraught with sharp tribal and regional conflicts and has never had an effective central government. It is hugely difficult for an outside force to create durable institutions in such a country.

A recent Time account described the Afghan army that the U.S. expects to maintain order as being "fractured" by tribal rivalries and deeply corrupt: "Commanders routinely steal their enlisted men's salaries. Soldiers shake down civilians at road checkpoints and sell off their own American-supplied boots, blankets and guns at the bazaar — sometimes to the Taliban. Afghans, not surprisingly, run when they see the army coming."

Congressional investigators found that the only way the U.S. could safely get supplies to troops at scattered bases was by "funding a massive protection racket in Afghanistan (and) indirectly paying tens of millions of dollars to warlords, corrupt public officials and the Taliban," The Washington Post reported.

Such anarchic stories are common and as disturbing as those noting the sharp increase in U.S. fatalities over the past 20 months. They make it difficult to envision a happy ending to the war. Instead, they suggest a prolonged, bloody, costly stalemate.

Petraeus, a smart, tough military leader, is now in charge of U.S. efforts in Afghanistan, and we hope that will make a positive difference. But it is not defeatist to doubt U.S. prospects for anything akin to a conventional military victory. The sad fact is it is realistic.

REPRINTED FROM THE SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE.

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