After the fruitless search for weapons of mass destruction, the last thing that Americans want to repeat is to go to war for one specified purpose, only to find out the fight is actually about something else.
More than seven years since the 9/11 attack on America, most people realize that the U.S. goal in Afghanistan is no longer simply to capture or kill its creator - al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
But, beyond the hunt for bin Laden, former President George W. Bush never articulated clearly the specific mission of our troops there. And to this point, neither has President Obama. Until our troops' mission is clear, the length of their stay in Afghanistan will remain an open question. As will the number of soldiers needed to get the job done - whatever that job is.
In Iraq, the quest for WMD became a war to topple Saddam Hussein. Then came nation-building, installing a democratic government, and clearing out the jihadists who had flocked to Baghdad to fight the American infidels who occupied it.
Is that the course for Afghanistan? Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates says no. "If we set ourselves the objective of creating some sort of Central Asian Valhalla over there, we will lose," he said last week.
OK, no Afghan Valhalla, but what do we want to accomplish? President Obama has announced a buildup of U.S. troops, probably doubling the current 34,000 in two years. Is he willing to add even more soldiers to reach whatever our goal is? What would need to happen for him to start reducing U.S. forces?
The answers will be complex. What happens in Afghanistan impacts its neighbor Pakistan, whose shaky government is threatened by the same al-Qaeda and Taliban jihadists that camp out in the border area linking the two countries.
Pakistan has nuclear weapons, so its stability is even more important to the region than Afghanistan's. But ensuring its stability is delicate. Pakistan's government has been cooperative, but politics dictate that President Asif Ali Zardari must not appear to be America's tool.
Obama has appointed veteran ambassador Richard Holbrooke to be his point man in Afghanistan. One of his first tasks is to get President Hamid Karzai to crack down on government corruption and on the opium trade used to bankroll the jihadists. That, too, will be difficult, with the poppy being Afghanistan's principal cash crop.
It's time for Obama to explain his endgame. Is the mission to eradicate the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan? What if the Europeans refuse to contribute more troops and materiel to the NATO forces there? Missiles have been fired from drones into Pakistan; how far will we go to root out al-Qaeda?
"My own personal view," said Gates, "is that our primary goal is to prevent Afghanistan from being used as a base for terrorists and extremists to attack the United States and our allies - and whatever else we need to do flows from that objective." That makes it all sound so simple, but what is included in "whatever else we need to do" needs to be made clearer.
