In October of 2001, the United States military entered Afghanistan, heading an international force and coordinating with the Afghan Northern Alliance to destroy Al-Qaeda’s base and unseat its governmental partner, the Taliban. At that time, there was little political opposition to an American-led war in Afghanistan, a quick strike in the name of self-defense and retaliation.

We are approaching the end of this the fifth year of this war. Recent news headlines have been as follows: “A Leading Afghan Official Working on Women’s Rights Has Been Shot Dead in Kandahar,” “Attacks in Afghanistan Grow More Frequent and Lethal” and “NATO calls for more troops to fight Taliban.” Remember that this is not 2001 or 2002 — it’s October of 2006. This is not the hiccup of a young war. It’s not another swing in an eternally unstable and restless country. Rather, it’s the patiently planned and well-coordinated second phase of the campaign to repel and expel the Americans and their partners.

The unnerving thing about this second attempt is that it is renewable. Uprooting the Taliban a second time won’t be easy, because it’s not only a militia but a source of real political clout in certain parts of the country. Even if NATO can accomplish the task, nothing is to prevent extremists from regrouping in the remote region of the Afghan-Pakistani border. Pakistan’s President Musharraf has established an uneasy ceasefire with Taliban forces in this area, called Waziristan, driven in part by a realistic acknowledgment of Islamabad’s weak authority in the region and in part by suspicion of subversion from India via its massive listening posts qua “consulates” in Kandahar and Jalalabad. Following his recent meeting with General Musharraf, President Bush has made clear that American Special Forces will not be taking the hunt for Osama bin Laden into Pakistan, where most intelligence professionals believe he is currently based.

It is five years in, halfway through Afghan President Karzai’s five-year mandate, during a springtime of violence and a floundering of troop commitments. So now would be a good time to ask: What’s the plan for Afghanistan? What are our goals and when are we leaving?

The answer may be, but should not be: “building democracy.” For all those who bristle at this suggestion, I ask that they first read Fred Halliday’s pre-9/11 article, “Soviet foreign policymaking and the Afghanistan war: from ‘second Mongolia’ to ‘bleeding wound.’” This monograph discusses the evolution of the USSR’s policy in Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion and great jihad 1979-89, during which bin Laden found his calling. It traces the original hopes of creating a “second Mongolia” to the grim confrontation of a bloody and hopeless conflict.

What is a “second Mongolia?” In 1924, well before Eastern Europe and the Baltic countries fell under Stalin’s hand, the Soviet Union installed a Communist government in Mongolia that was loyal to Moscow and faithful to its ruling style. Half a century later, Soviet leaders thought that Afghanistan could also become an ideal of single-party, socialist government, and tried to establish a Communist leadership as well as a Marxist culture.

Just as the Soviets justified their invasion with a historical success story, a body of hopeful planners in Washington backed up their recent advocacy for the democratization of the Middle East with glossy narratives of Japan and Germany. Is America now waking up from utopian optimism and a foggy historical sense to find itself staring at a bleeding wound?

Many will point out that the United States military is far more advanced than the Soviet force of 1979, and that it benefits from that example. Yet at a certain point, politics must decide the outcome of battles — politicians try to guess at a reality, and soldiers get to tell them how good that guess was. If in this case the guess was that the United States could democratize the Middle East and the results would be beneficial, the guess was wrong. If it was indeed our intention to bring them democracy, we could have started with countries that were more stable, that were closer to us or that had a better economy, like Egypt or Saudi Arabia. However, we wouldn’t push our friends in these countries very hard, because the prospect of their extremists gaining power democratically is too risky.

So what are we doing in Afghanistan? Certainly not building democracy. At best we have a tribal oligarchy, at worst a piece of soft empire managed by Karzais. Money and lives spent on teaching the language of democracy would be just as poorly spent on teaching the language of Mongolia. The problem is that, in leaving, we signal a victory to the extremists. Unless, of course, we achieve the goal that sent us to Afghanistan in the first place. Unless we get revenge, unless we get bin Laden.

Peter Durning is a senior majoring in history. If you have tips on where he can find Osama, please e-mail him at pdurning@stanford.edu.