Some 9,800 American troops and another 26,000 contractors are in Afghanistan, after having waged war there for 15 years. Given the state of the situation there, it is now up to President Barack Obama-and the two major party candidates, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump-to explain in specific terms what exactly the U.S. is doing there still, or agree that America should get out.
First, even though it has been America's strategy for years to train and equip Afghan troops to defend the country against Taliban forces so that U.S. soldiers can go home, it is perfectly clear that U.S. strategy has failed. The Taliban have surrounded Helmand province and its capital Lashkar Gah and have been prevented from taking it only through repeated, frequent U.S. air strikes.
The Afghan military and police forces who are supposed to not only protect Afghan government territory but also to expand it through military force have instead faded in the face of the Taliban. They also spend a certain amount of time blaming each other for the collective battlefield failure. Their units are ridden with conflicting loyalties to tribes and warlords.
Their leaders' real priorities are to gain as much of the profits from the opium trade as possible. Rivalries among Afghan leaders are usually rooted in seeking access to opium profits.
Then there is the utter chaos of governance that characterizes the Kabul regime. In principle Ashraf Ghani, a Pashtun, a member of Afghanistan's traditional ruling tribe, is president and Abdullah Abdullah, from Afghanistan's northern tribes, is, in effect, prime minister. They are rivals. In principle they were supposed to work together, to please the Americans as much as for any other reason. But now they have split sharply again over appointments to lucrative positions in government.
If the argument for being in Afghanistan is to watch neighboring Pakistan, a sometimes unruly nuclear power, then the U.S. should watch Pakistan, not pour resources into Afghanistan.
Fifteen years is a long time to prolong what appears to be an expensive, utterly fruitless policy in a country now of little or no interest to the United States.