Arthur Herman: After 10 Years, Getting Afghanistan Right

Arthur Herman is the Pulitzer Prize-finalist author of Gandhi and Churchill.

Ten years ago today, the first American Special Forces landed in Afghanistan as part of Operation Enduring Freedom. Five weeks later, the fighting was over, as Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda fled across the border into Pakistan and the Taliban regime collapsed.

Some obvious questions demand answers: Why that victorious tide of war became reversed? Why we are still fighting there a decade later -- and what do we hope to achieve? And, on the other hand, what happens if we don’t stay -- if a war-weary America gives up on that rugged, forbiddingly primitive country and its tough, valiant people?

Make no mistake: Afghanistan is now the vital front line in our fight with Islamicist terrorism; abandoning it now could make the difference between ultimate victory and suffering another, even more deadly, 9/11.

Certainly we’ve made a host of mistakes until now. For one, it was never clear whether the goal of Operation Enduring Freedom was to destroy al Qaeda, topple their Taliban protector or to establish a new government in its place. Somewhat to our surprise, we ended up doing all three so quickly that no one was prepared for what came next…