The US occupation of Afghanistan faces two distinct military challenges. The first is managing an essentially nationalist Taliban insurgency with Islamist overtones. The second is destroying al-Qaeda, a transnational terrorist organization, and its like-minded allies. Under the operational cover of the former, it is the latter that has informed core American interests in Afghanistan.
Leaving Afghanistan on the basis of intelligence estimates, however, lacks both the psychological satisfaction and narrative power of exiting on the back of a job well done. The problem, from the American perspective, in acting on such assessments has been pulling off an American withdrawal that is not seen by the American public and the wider world as a strategic defeat. Such a perception would undoubtedly diminish American power.
In this context, Bin Laden's killing has provided Washington an opportune "mission accomplished" moment. The US can now begin a shift back to the old script about Bin Laden being the effective marker for success in Afghanistan, and sever its counter-terrorism objectives from the quagmire of counter-insurgency.
For it is clear that the ramped up counter-insurgency effort has, despite some tactical successes in Afghanistan's south, been a strategic failure. Far from imposing a new military reality on the ground, it has been unable even to alter the Taliban's perception that they are winning the war (simply because they are not losing it). "
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