The hopeless Afghanistan war

The reason the Afghanistan war, nearly a decade old, stumbles on is because it is unwinable and it is all that President Obama can do to keep from losing it on his watch. He intends to push the loss onto the next administration. If it looks like he can't hold things together there for another five years he will follow Lyndon Johnson's example and decline to run for a second term. His successor will likely be a Republican who, like Richard Nixon, will withdraw from the war under cover of some face-saving claims that the US installed government is ready to fight on its own. When that proves to be untrue is when the arguments will begin in earnest over who "lost" Afghanistan.