Perhaps among all the scribbling newspaper columnists in the world, none has supported the US commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan more consistently than I have. Yet two months in the US, from which I have just returned, has convinced me that the era of US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan is coming rapidly to a close. And it is time that it did.
America has done more than enough. It cannot want democracy more than the Iraqis want it, or the Afghans.
In Iraq I believe it was reasonable for the Americans to intervene on the evidence they had at the time. What did they achieve?
They brought an end to the rule of the most murderous tyrant, Saddam Hussein, in the second half of the 20th century. They ensured Iraq would not revive its nuclear weapons program or threaten its neighbours any more. And they gave Iraq a chance at a better future, something approaching self-government and democracy. The violence that accompanied the process was the cause of the terrorists and extremists who opposed the US-led operation, which shortly after it began acquired the legitimacy of UN sanction. Now it's up to the Iraqis.
Afghanistan is a different case. After the 9/11 attacks the US tried to negotiate with the Taliban regime to give up al-Qa'ida, which they had sheltered. The terrorists who murdered Australians in large numbers also trained in Afghanistan. The US intervention was to smash al-Qa'ida's network, destroy the Taliban government and give Afghanistan a chance at something better.
But next year the US will have been there a decade. It's long enough. I think Barack Obama made pretty much the right decision this year to surge US troop levels but then set a date, mid-next year, when the US starts to withdraw. One argument against this is that it allows the Taliban to
wait out the US. But they could do that anyway. No one could seriously imagine the US would be there forever.
This is not a sign of US weakness. No other nation could have mobilised such forces or sustained such commitment. The efforts to reconstruct Afghanistan, which have cost the US so much, have sprung in part from US idealism, not from any modern imperialism.
It is impossible to consider this debate now without taking account of Bob Woodward's new book, Obama's Wars. It is fashionable to deride Woodward's work but I find it astonishing. It is a book so full of secret memorandums and records of conversation, and undenied accounts of the words and thoughts of most of the US policy-makers, that it represents a mother lode of data that is now central to the debate.
From an astonishingly rich book, I would draw four key conclusions. One, terrorism is a strategic threat to the US and its allies and the danger of terrorists getting hold of a nuclear weapon, or nuclear material, is growing. This makes the outcome in Afghanistan centrally related to terrorism and of enormous importance.
Two, the outcome in Pakistan is even more important, but Pakistan makes it impossible to fully stabilise Afghanistan. It is not in Woodward's book, but impeccable US sources tell me that from 2001 to 2005 Pakistan kept up its links with the Taliban but did not offer them material assistance. From 2005 Pakistan's military intelligence, the ISI, came to believe the Americans might lose in Afghanistan and went back to their old policies of trying to influence Pashtun politics through the Taliban. Woodward's book details countless examples of the treachery, dishonesty and sabotage by Pakistan against the Americans and ultimately against its own interests. Pakistan has created numerous terrorist groups, mainly to harm India, and cannot now control them, even as they attack the Pakistani state. Pakistan continues to supply safe haven and material assistance to the Taliban and this makes a comprehensive counter-insurgency triumph in Afghanistan impossible.
Three, Obama and his team were desperate for more allied troops. This makes the claims of Julia Gillard that there has never been a formal request for more Australian troops look utterly ridiculous. If the Americans didn't ask it was only because they were told in advance they would be turned down.
If the US-led, and wholly UN-sanctioned, effort in Afghanistan ultimately fails it will be in large part because all of the US's allies except Britain effectively decided the US could do it on its own.
The Liberals under Tony Abbott are right to offer more troops, even at this late stage. It is overwhelmingly in Australia's interests for the effort in Afghanistan to succeed. There is another critical consideration for Australia. As the Americans draw down, they must do so in a way that does not compromise their ongoing military credibility.
This is a huge Australian national interest because US military credibility is vital to security in the Asia-Pacific. Help from allies during this period would be important to Washington.
Four, Obama decided, perfectly rationally, that he would not commit the financial, human and military resources to a decade-long, fully resourced, national counter-insurgency campaign in Afghanistan. It would cost $1 trillion at least and require 100,000 US troops in Afghanistan indefinitely. Instead he aims to punch back hard against the Taliban, keep al-Qa'ida from coming back, train the Afghan security forces and give the Afghans a shot at running a half decent government.
It may or may not work. I cannot regard this decision on Obama's part with cynicism. In an imperfect world of limited resources, he is making one last effort to help the Afghans.
The US army and marines cannot sustain the deployment tempo of recent years. It would have been politically easier for Obama to cap his troop commitment at a lower number, with a dual mission only of counter-terrorism and training the Afghan security forces.
I no longer believe that Afghanistan is the key to Pakistan's future. Pakistan's troubles are entirely of its own making.
The most shocking passages in Woodward's book are those in which US intelligence and political leaders confront Pakistanis with irrefutable evidence of their deep complicity in terrorist plots, especially those concerning Lashkar-e-Toiba, which has so often sought to kill Australians.
Pakistan and Afghanistan are going to be big trouble for a long time, but the era when US troops in large numbers were the solution is rapidly drawing to a close.