A war that cannot be won or lost

[Dayuhan]

The best one can achieve for the overall effort, lacking using the Roman or Mongol models of total annihilation (frowned upon today) is an acceptable outcome.

Ok, I'll buy that... but we still need some idea of an outcome that is both acceptable and achievable.

The initial plan was to topple the Talibs and leave; rightly or wrongly and for reasons not fully known, that got changed and we, the USA in the form of the government of the day, told the Afghans we would stay and 'fix it.'

Error on our part IMO but they didn't ask me. So we said it. Now, we're honor bound to do it, I think.

That decision probably emerged from the assumption that leaving without "fixing it" to some extent would mean the Talibs would return and we'd have to do it all over again. That's arguably true, but still leaves us with the problem of figuring out what we can fix and how much we have to fix to prevent a Talib resurgence.

Concur, but isn't the objective in A'Stan to have a pro-western stable government? Am I wrong?

That's a pretty easy objective to understand. It may actually be impossible, because we are not prepared defeat the insurgency, but I don't think anyone would quibble with the "idea" or the "dream."

That would be an ideal outcome, but probably not an achievable one.

I think one of the problems that emerges over and over again in these discussions of objective is the home-front assumption that democratic governments are necessarily stable. In the long run I'd agree that democratic governments are more stable, but in the short to medium term, the early stages of democratic transition often yield governments that are extremely unstable and in many cases virtually dysfunctional. This is especially true in countries facing ethnic strife and other long-running internal divisions, very common in areas where "nations" are defined by anachronistic colonial-era boundaries. All too often Americans seem to feel that once we've had an election everything will be ok and we can withdraw... a fairly optimistic notion, at best. We also have to deal with the reality that a democratic government may or may not be pro-western... and if it turns out anti-western, there isn't a whole lot we can do about it.

This isn't to say that we shouldn't have elections or try to assist nations down the road to democracy, but we can't view those moves as some sort of panacea that is certain or even likely to produce pro-western stability.

So if "stable, pro-western government" is not achievable, what would be both acceptable and achievable? Personally, I could live without "pro-western": neutral would be fine, or even rhetorically anti-western, as long as the rhetoric isn't translated to action against the west or (more to the point) refuge for those who take action against the west.

Of course that's probably not achievable either... I never claimed to have The Answer, just trying to get a better handle on The Question!