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Not that many in Washington or elsewhere in the U.S. would object to saying goodbye. It was once smart politics to argue that America couldn't walk away from Afghanistan. No longer. "If we withdraw, Afghanistan could go back to the 1990s and a civil war could break out again," says Jonah Blank, a regional expert at the Rand Corp. "And the American public would not particularly care." Representative Ted Deutch, a Florida Democrat, put it more bluntly: "Many of our constituents want us to bring home every last U.S. soldier, every one."
Karzai may just be delaying the security agreement so his successor can ink the deal next spring--which would make post-2014 planning more difficult but not impossible for Washington. The leading candidates include two figures respected in the West: Abdullah Abdullah, a former Foreign Minister, and Ashraf Ghani, an ex--Finance Minister. (Karzai, who will move into a mansion adjacent to the presidential compound, is expected to maintain plenty of informal power.) Both are expected to welcome an extended NATO presence, and either would be a refreshing change from the mercurial Karzai, who exhausted Washington's patience long ago.
The election process is another danger spot, however. Karzai's 2009 election was fraud-ridden, creating a legitimacy crisis that crippled his government's credibility. "If the spring elections are anything like the last ones, that will be a disaster for the country," says Brian Katulis, a foreign policy expert at the left-leaning Center for American Progress.
The first task for whoever takes over will be guiding the country through the exit of the U.S.'s 48,000 remaining troops. (Few of them see regular combat these days; by late December, 117 Americans had been killed in Afghanistan in 2013, down from 492 in 2010. The 12-year war has left 2,161 Americans dead and more than 19,500 wounded.) The exact pace of the U.S. withdrawal has yet to be determined and may depend on how well Afghan forces--whose combat performance remains worryingly uneven--can manage alone.
Achieving something like real peace, which means a settlement with the Taliban and other power-hungry warlords, will be even harder. The Taliban remain unwilling to deal with the government in Kabul, and armed ethnic militias are girding for battle. Says Katulis: "We are not leaving behind a society poised to heal itself and move beyond its divisions." But we're not prepared to keep fighting a war for it either.