Though costly, Afghanistan is a win

…The Obama administration returned to the objective that had led the United States to invade Afghanistan in the first place. “Our overarching goal,” Obama said in a 2009 speech, is “to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaida in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and to prevent its capacity to threaten America and our allies in the future.” While the Obama administration continued efforts to strengthen the Afghan security forces, it also expanded strikes on Taliban sanctuaries, including those in Pakistan, with a heavy emphasis on drone attacks. …

Now the United States recognizes that the best it can do is to keep the Taliban from winning, rather than decisively defeat them. Afghanistan’s future is likely to reflect its past: a titular “national” government that controls Kabul and some of the other major cities, surrounded by a patchwork of regions dominated by warlords — probably even some Taliban ones. But despite the fact that Afghanistan will not become the “stable, moderate and democratic state” that Bush and Obama sought, it is very unlikely to become a power-projection base for al-Qaida. …

The narrative on Afghanistan has not solidified, but it is forming. If U.S. involvement there is judged by the inability to attain the expansive, unrealistic goals that eventually developed during the Bush administration and carried over to the first few years of the Obama administration, it will be seen as an abject failure. But if the yardstick is the initial Bush and late-Obama objectives — preventing Afghanistan from being used as an al-Qaida base — then U.S. involvement can be considered a success.