where does the mission end?

I find it very difficult to work out whether we (Britain and America, the West) should be in Afghanistan; anyone who thinks it easy to answer hasn't thought about it enough. But Marc Lynch at Foreign Policy (who also has an open mind) poses a good question:

Suppose the U.S. succeeded beyond all its wildest expectations, and turned Afghanistan into Nirvana on Earth, an orderly, high GDP nirvana with universal health care and a robust wireless network (and even suppose that it did this without the expense depriving Americans of the same things).  So what? Al-Qaeda (or what we call al-Qaeda) could easily migrate to Somalia, to Yemen, deeper into Pakistan, into the Caucasas, into Africa --- into a near infinite potential pool of ungoverned or semi-governed spaces with potentially supportive environments.  Are we to commit the United States to bringing effective governance and free wireless to the entire world?

Comments

[ejoch]

Perhaps the question provides the answer. There are two separate issues interwined in Afghanistan- the threat to the national interest of the US and other countries, and, the problem of bringing good governance. Attempting to solve the former does not automatically mean you have to solve the latter (however desirable it seem to try - and for one example, bring some sort of better life to women in that country).
I've absolutely no idea though, even if the US and allies were to start dealing with the country from a purely self-interested POV, what could be done differently. It's not as if there's any kind of friendly autocrat there powerful enough - yet- to be given money and arms and left to it.

[Scott]

The AfPak phase of the mission will wind down when Afghanistan crosses the threshold into something approximating self-sustaining growth, when the government in Kabul is able to effectively police its own borders, and when movement across the Durand Line no longer poses a threat to the integrity of the Pakistani state.

What is so difficult to grasp about that?