It may be the 'hardest thing in the world to get out' - Sydney Morning Herald

Analysis

''What does Afghanistan show?'' Stephen Smith asked on Tuesday. ''Easiest thing in the world to get in, hardest thing in the world to get out.''

He was talking about military occupation generally, but rarely has it been truer than in Afghanistan.

Tuesday's announcement of the closure of Tarin Kowt base is a milestone, but the question of how exactly a massive coalition like the International Security Assistance Force actually draws a line under more than a decade of conflict remains an open one.

Most Diggers will be out by the end of this year. But the Australian government is keeping open the option of leaving some special forces for training and counter-terrorism beyond the end of 2014, when Afghans formally take full responsibility for their security.

What Australia decides depends very much on what the United States decides. And that in turn depends on whether the Americans can reach an agreement with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. What would be the legal status of remaining troops? Would they be immune from prosecution? Right now they're protected under a UN mandate but that will end on December 31, 2014.

The US failed to cut a similar agreement with the Iraqi government when it was winding down its presence there in 2011.

An Afghan agreement looks less likely than it did six months ago, with the mercurial Karzai recently accusing US forces of colluding with the Taliban and killing civilians - then saying on Tuesday he was misquoted.

Certainly, Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmai Rassoul seemed bemused last week when, during a press conference in Canberra with Smith, it was put to him that Australian special forces might be doing counter-terrorism duties beyond 2014.

His understanding was that Australians - if they stay - would only be training Afghans.

''The fact that the Foreign Minister didn't recognise this doesn't lend much hope to the thought that the Afghans are particularly focused on Australia,'' says Peter Jennings, head of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

That mightn't be a bad thing. Many special forces soldiers are on their sixth or seventh rotations.

Perhaps, as Jennings points out, they've done their work. It's time to bring them home.