Public wants to know how long the war in Afghanistan will last

WASHINGTON (AP) — As President Barack Obama weighs thrusting America deeper into the conflict in Afghanistan with perhaps thousands more combat troops, his administration has yet to answer a question at the core of his strategy for turning around the deteriorating war: How long will it last?

Defense Secretary Robert Gates and other top Pentagon officials have said they need to show clear progress against the insurgents within 12 to 18 months to firm up public confidence in the war effort. But they are not venturing firm estimates of how long it will take to achieve their central goal of defeating al-Qaida and the Taliban in both Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan.

The reason for their fuzzy outlook is simple: This is not a conventional conflict, where one side can plant a flag and declare victory. It’s not even a strictly military problem.

Instead, the U.S. is undertaking a complex counterinsurgency campaign that may never have a defined ending. The U.S.-led effort to stabilize Afghanistan confronts a vexing South Asian brew of political, economic, social and security problems that some experts believe will take decades to sort out.

If, as expected, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, tells Obama in coming weeks that he needs more troops, the president will have to consider not just the cost in blood and treasure but also the wisdom — and political viability — of escalating a stalemated conflict with no end in sight.

Many in Congress are growing more skeptical, after years of approving ever-growing war chests for Iraq.

During the administration of President George W. Bush, when the spotlight was mainly on Iraq, the open-ended nature of the battle for Afghanistan caused relatively little public angst in the U.S. But now, with the U.S. commitment expanding, casualties rising and Afghan security deteriorating, public opinion is souring.

The war is nearly eight years old, and by some estimates, the tide is turning against U.S. and allied forces. A revitalized Taliban resistance has gained ground in some parts of Afghanistan, and prospects for political stability may have been dealt a serious blow late last month by a fraud-tainted Afghan presidential election.

The American public is showing signs of war exhaustion, after electing a president who promised he would end the Iraq war and then, shortly after taking office, approved requests to dispatch an additional 21,000 troops to Afghanistan. Opinion polls show declining support for the war in Afghanistan and growing doubt that it can be won, even as the U.S. combat death toll hit a wartime monthly high in August.

A CNN poll conducted in the final four days of August said 42 percent supported the war and 57 opposed it. That compared to 53 percent supporting and 46 percent opposing in early April, days after Obama announced a new war strategy and vowed to provide resources to the war effort in ways his predecessor did not.

Some have cited the turnaround in Iraqi security, after the “surge” of troops in 2007-08, as evidence that putting more U.S. troops on the ground in Afghanistan could produce similarly positive results.

Ryan Crocker, who was sent to Kabul to reopen the U.S. Embassy after the fall of the Taliban and was ambassador to Baghdad during the troop surge in Iraq, cautioned in a Newsweek essay last week that the Obama administration needs to be careful what lessons it draws from the Iraq experience.

“Relentless internal conflict is not endemic in Iraq. In Afghanistan, it is,” Crocker wrote.

Afghan patience with the U.S. also seems to be wearing thin. Ashraf Haidari, political counselor at the Afghan Embassy in Washington, wrote in a letter to the editor of The Washington Post on Monday that the United States and its partners “have yet to commit seriously” to Afghanistan’s future.