The U.S. was supposed to leave Afghanistan by 2017. Now it might take decades.

Top U.S. military commanders, who only a few months ago were planning to pull the last American troops out of Afghanistan by year’s end, are now quietly talking about an American commitment that could keep thousands of troops in the country for decades.

The shift in mind-set, made possible by President Obama’s decision last fall to cancel withdrawal plans, reflects the Afghan government’s vulnerability to continued militant assault and concern that terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda continue to build training camps whose effect could be felt far beyond the region, said senior military officials.

The new American outlook marks a striking change for Obama, who campaigned on a promise to bring American troops home and has said repeatedly that he does not support the “idea of endless war.” And it highlights a major shift for the American military, which has spent much of the past decade racing to hit milestones as part of its broader “exit strategy” from Afghanistan and Iraq. These days, that phrase has largely disappeared from the military’s lexicon.

In its place, there is a broad recognition in the Pentagon that building an effective Afghan army and police force will take a generation’s commitment, including billions of dollars a year in outside funding and constant support from thousands of foreign advisers on the ground.

"What we’ve learned is that you can’t really leave,” said a senior Pentagon official with extensive experience in Afghanistan and Iraq who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions. “The local forces need air support, intelligence and help with logistics. They are not going to be ready in three years or five years. You have to be there for a very long time.”

Senior U.S. commanders have also been surprised by al-Qaeda’s resilience and ability to find a haven in the Afghan countryside, as well as the Taliban’s repeated seizure of large tracts of contested territory.

 In November, the U.S. military sent a company of elite U.S. Rangers to southeastern Afghanistan to help Afghan counterterrorism forces destroy an al-Qaeda training camp in a “fierce fight” that lasted for several days.

The training camp was “absolutely massive,” said Brig. Gen. Wilson Shoffner, a military spokesman in Afghanistan.

No matter what happens in the next couple of years Afghanistan is going to have wide ungoverned spaces that violent extremist organizations can take advantage of,” Shoffner said. “The camp that developed in southeastern Kandahar is an example of what can happen.”

There are now 9,800 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, some of them advising local forces and some focused on hunting down al-Qaeda and other hard-line militants. Plans call for Obama to halve that force by the time he leaves office, but he could defer the decision to the next president.

The U.S. military’s current thinking reflects its painful experience in Iraq, where Iraqi army forces collapsed less than three years after American forces left in 2011.

And it’s echoed in the arguments made by many Republican and Democratic foreign policy advisers, looking beyond the Obama presidency, for a significant long-term American presence. “This is not a region you want to abandon,” said Michèle Flournoy, a former Pentagon official who would probably be considered a top candidate for defense secretary in a Hillary Clinton administration. “So the question is what do we need going forward given our interests?” - Read More at the Washingtonpost

The U.S. was supposed to leave Afghanistan by 2017. Now it might take decades.