As the Afghanistan mission has encountered growing troubles this summer, the debate about whether to lower U.S. goals and focus more narrowly on counterterrorism has again re-emerged. Such a shift sounds appealing. If advocates are right, we could protect the United States against terrorism while lowering costs, casualties and commitment in Afghanistan — a war that by some measures is about to become the longest in U.S. history.
Those who favor the counterterrorism option — as opposed to deeper engagement — imply that we can destroy al-Qaeda's core with a few U.S. special forces teams, modern intelligence fusion centers, cruise-missile-carrying ships and unmanned aerial vehicles of the type that recently killed Pakistani extremist leader Baitullah Mehsud. Some advocates of this kind of plan would continue our intense efforts to train Afghan security forces. Others would not. But all envision a dramatically reduced U.S. role.
Pretty good — if it would work.
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