Though the State of the Union Address normally doesn't focus on foreign policy, it was interesting to note that Iraq and Afghanistan comprised all of three minutes of that entire address. It is all too clear that his December troop surge announcement was an appropriate beginning to a necessary end.

The Americans should have learned from the Soviet mistake, and the British before them, that Afghanistan is not a nation that can be easily subdued. But some mistakes, once made, cannot be reversed and must be seen all the way through to their sad ends. And Obama's announcement on Dec 1st was an effort to do just that. Afghanistan is beyond lost and the goal now is to exit gratefully from this "good war." Missteps in the primary stages of war created lasting impediments to peace. As such, the joint surge and withdrawal announcement allows the West to apply lipstick to the proverbial pig: to clean up loose ends and present itself as having had some constructive effect on Afghanistan.

Obama's speech successfully portrayed the surge as the beginning of a slow-and-steady phase out period. And if NATO can attempt to achieve the following three goals in the next few years, the West has the opportunity to save face. It can show that its presence in Afghanistan had some discernable value. First and foremost, the goal is to project the image of a collaborative effort in Afghanistan. NATO should increase troop activity before it limits it, in order to present this as a NATO mission, and not an American failure.

To the Pashtuns, and indeed to the entire Middle East, this is an American war. Despite the NATO presence, the United States made an effort after Operation Allied Force in Kosovo to avoid "war by committee" at all costs. It was not until 2003 that the US gave up minimal control of forces in Afghanistan to NATO. And even if Obama is genuinely interested now in a multilateral approach, NATO members have never had both feet in Afghanistan. This is reflected by the paralyzing caveats that senior commanders have to deal with. It becomes impossible to coordinate troops when member states send personalized demands - some soldiers cannot conduct night patrol and others cannot be in combat. Though its called a mission, it is treated like a voluntary project. NATO's lack of strategy and common voice is obstructive, especially at a time when it is crucial for this war to be seen as a joint commitment.

Second, a disproportionate focus needs to be placed on alternatives  to poppy cultivation in Afghanistan. The country has gone from producing 52%  of the world's supply in the mid-1990s to 93% in 2008. It makes little sense to simply destroy all the opium in Afghanistan - you might as well aerial spray the entire population. There are zero alternatives to this narco-economy. The country is dirt-poor and there is no infrastructure to speak of. Harsh tactics like aerial spraying the crops serve only to propogate the fluid alliances of convenience between pragmatic Afghan farmers and opportunistic Taliban.

Third, when it comes to Kabul, the West will have to think of some kind of alternative governing strategy. Afghanistan has historically had little experience with centralized government, so Karzai's relevance and influence outside of Kabul is unimpressive, if not non-existent. Couple this with President Bush's preferred "light footprint" method in 2001, whereby the Taliban was defeated in Kabul by CIA-funded local militants and the old Northern Alliance. Right from the outset, this tactic inadvertently allowed local warlords to re-establish their military fiefdoms, thus irreparably undermining the potential for Afghanistan's embryonic civilian army to succeed.

In other words, outside of Kabul, there is no government and there is no civilian army, and in the next ten-fifteen years that's not going to change. The West have to accept some kind of decentralized system, whereby locals have their own control so long as they recognize the authority of Kabul in some minimal manner, and so long as they denounce the Taliban. Leave it to the locals to get rid of the Taliban presence - they are mostly unwanted anyway, and useful only insofar as they promise the end of American influence. And if they need help, Kabul should be ready to supply.

Last, something needs to be done about Pakistan. In an effort to keep Afghanistan under its thumb, Musharraf played a double game for his entire presidency. Pakistani intelligence is believed to have funded the main centre of Taliban command (the Quetta shura), and all the while, the United States has been providing Pakistan with money that has been funneled right back into the insurgency - at least $10 billion in aid over 6 years.

At this point in the game, any further US presence in Pakistan could enrage the population and bring down the Zardari government. But the Lal Masjid tragedy and the state of emergency declared in 2007 have opened some eyes in Pakistan. Zardari made a peace agreement with the Taliban in the Swat Valley, and this turned out to be a colossal mistake, as the militants are now creeping towards Islamabad. NATO can make an effort to sell air support to Pakistan not as part of the ideological US war on Terror/Islam, but as part of a limited multilateral effort to reduce violence and instability in Pakistan.

In Afghanistan, the military aspect has failed and political will does not exist. Admiral Mullen said in 2008 that, "We can't kill our way to victory." The Bush administration created a troubling situation for the Afghan people, the Karzai government and the Taliban: one that cannot be reversed unless Obama is truly interested in nation-building. Unfortunately, no one has any interest in fighting the war that Afghanistan needs fought, so the best thing to do is to cut losses now and start cleaning.