© Common DreamsNot an exit in sight...
The surge worked! That was the buzzphrase of 2008. Supposedly the 20,000 extra troops Bush ordered into Iraq for a year had calmed the situation so much the US could now proclaim victory and gradually withdraw from the country.
In reality the extra troops had done nothing. What had really happened was that the US - as it had done in so many of its wars - finally accepted a deal it could have had all along. US accepted local insurgent control of Sunni areas, and these in turn booted out foreign fighters and al-Qaeda in Iraq.
Nonetheless the surge myth was born. All the US now needed to do, to likewise win in Afghanistan, was to "surge" there as well. Obama thus allowed the Pentagon to arrange a similar escalation in Afghanistan - under the understanding that there would be real progress and that, like Bush, after a year he could gradually withdraw.
Of course that was never going to happen, because the troop build up was never the magic ingredient in the Iraq "success" in the first place. Pentagon always resented the fact that Obama in return for okaying an escalation demanded to see some actual progress. For Trump they have an entirely new scheme: they want a massive new investment without having to show anything for it:
Most important, the strategy would jettison President Barack Obama's approach of setting arbitrary deadlines for the withdrawal of U.S. forces and instead would link the participation of U.S. troops inside the country to meeting clear conditions on the battlefield, such as winning back territory from the Taliban and denying safe haven to al Qaeda, the Islamic State and other bad actors, according to these officials.
Comment: Ah yes...poppy fields forever ($)...and location, location, location! The US can't afford to get out.