“As commander in chief, I have determined that it is in our vital national interest to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan. After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home,” President Obama announced last night. “These are the resources that we need to seize the initiative, while building the Afghan capacity that can allow for a responsible transition of our forces out of Afghanistan.”

The goal of this short-term surge is to stamp out the Taliban and al Qaeda insurgencies enough to allow a functional state to flourish, one that can police itself well enough that the U.S. can leave.

That’s a whole lot to achieve in 18 months. Chasing this objective, America will spend billions of dollars and perhaps hundreds of American lives.

Evidence is plenteous that all this strength, ultimately, will be spent in vain. Some of the most compelling can be found in Iraq.

The goal there has been largely the same, only under far more favorable conditions. And today, America’s considerable efforts in Iraq are unraveling.

In 2006, with a deteriorating security situation there, the Bush administration faced pressure to get out, or at least change strategy. For months the president deliberated, and finally, at the beginning of 2007, committed to a surge of 20,000 troops. The surge was principally intended to curb insurgency violence in order to create space for political progress. Unlike last night’s announcement, it had no timetable, thus bolstering allies in the region and forcing insurgents to accept the prospect of a long-term American commitment there.

Nearly three years later, we can measure certain effects of that surge. Violence did drop. Conditions for political gains did become more favorable. Many observers today applaud its success. But another reality is also becoming clear: The political gains it was meant to facilitate simply have not materialized. The government in Baghdad is fractured and splintering. Violence is beginning to rear its head again.

Nevertheless, the U.S. is already beginning to treat its project in Iraq as a done deal. “Today, after extraordinary costs,” President Obama said last night, “we are bringing the Iraq War to a responsible end.” His administration began pulling troops out this past June; combat forces will leave next summer and all troops by the end of 2011. “[W]e have given Iraqis a chance to shape their future, and we are successfully leaving Iraq to its people,” the president proclaimed.

As much as President Obama wants to put Iraq behind him, Iraq simply isn’t in any mood to accommodate him.

The withdrawal in June “left a power vacuum between feuding Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds that is escalating and threatens to pull in Iran, Turkey and the Sunni states of the Gulf,” wrote Ed Blanche in Middle East magazine. Reconstruction has all but stopped, and the crucial oil industry is withering for lack of foreign investment. And as U.S. forces pull out, sectarian violence is filling the void. Even amid strict security, two bombings killed over 155 people in Baghdad on October 25. “With the gradual disengagement of the U.S. military and all combat forces by August 2010, [al Qaeda in Iraq] and like-minded insurgents appear to have a growing level of confidence in their operations,” wrote the Jamestown Foundation’s Ramzy Mardini last week.

The fact is, Iran is neck-deep in a robust, long-term bid to control Iraq. It has financed and encouraged both political agents and militias on a massive scale in an effort to turn the country into a strong Shiite ally, if not puppet state. This has caused substantial consternation and angst among Iraq’s Sunnis and Kurds, many of whom patently fear a Shiite tyranny. Now, Iraq’s first national election since 2005—scheduled for January—is certain to be postponed until spring or later. The country’s vice president vetoed an election law put together by Iraq’s parliament because he felt it hurt Sunni interests.

With the future of Iraq still in play, sectarian and ethnic political coalitions are emerging that both reveal and heighten the country’s deep divisions. The prospect of a reasonably united, functional government is slipping over the horizon.

This failure is sure to encourage more violence. Sunni insurgents who wanted no fight with America’s beefed-up troops, or who laid low to see whether the political process would work out, are ready to start kicking up trouble again.

Thus, Iraq’s future is quite certain. President Obama’s rhetoric notwithstanding, as America’s presence shrinks, so will Iraq’s security—as will its independence from Iran. The notion that, after all America’s effort, Iraq will be a healthy American ally, yielding a net gain against the forces of terror, is a fantasy.

We can expect a similar scenario to play out in Afghanistan. The surge will likely put a lid on violence in the short term as terrorists hunker down until July of 2011. But the achievement won’t stick. The Afghan security forces meant to take over from U.S. troops will be ineffective, and riddled with deserters and Islamist infiltrators. The government will be corrupt and compromised. And once America starts pulling out, terrorists will pick up where they left off.

In reality, America’s military is designed to conquer enemies, not to create functional democracies. In its now-eight-year “war on terrorism,” America has sought not only to defeat terrorists, but also to then keep them down by transforming their host nations into stable, freedom-loving, Western-friendly governments. On this front, it has yet to score a single victory. That’s because it is a fundamentally impossible mission.

In the broad picture, as the U.S. has prosecuted this war at great cost, the most dangerous Islamist forces have only grown more dangerous. This remarkable fact was vividly clear last night: As a backdrop to America’s president committing 30,000 more soldiers to a doomed effort in Afghanistan, the king of Middle Eastern terror, Iran, has been bolder than ever. It is bloodying Britain’s nose over a run-in with its sailors; it is blasting the UN for threatening sanctions and ramping up its support for terrorism in response; it is blatantly defying America and the West by promising, come what may, to expand its nuclear program. This is the Middle Eastern nation identified in biblical prophecy as playing the key role in rallying the region’s radicals and provoking the West into a world war. Yet it hardly registers a blip on Washington’s radar screen. After Iran’s unswerving nuclear belligerence and repeated refusals to make a single concession to Western pressure, the toughest response the White House can muster is, “Time is running out for Iran” before the UN contemplates tougher sanctions. Doesn’t exactly strike fear in the heart.

God prophesied in Leviticus 26:19-20 what would happen to America, a modern descendant of ancient Israel, in this end time if it turned its back on Him: “And I will break the pride of your power … And your strength shall be spent in vain.” There could be no more precise description of the futility of U.S. power. Tossing multiple brigades into the Afghan wilderness on an unwinnable mission while standing aside as the king of the south builds a nuclear arsenal more than qualifies.