President Obama has now enjoyed 9 months in power as the leader of the most powerful country in the world. He was elected on the premise of being anti-Iraq and accused the previous administration of not focusing properly on the war in Afghanistan even going so far as to call it the true center of the “war on terror”. With that, he promised to shift resources early on from Iraq to Afghanistan to stabilize and “win” the true “war on terror”.
It has been 9 months and one would assume that Afghanistan would have gotten more attention by now. Certainly, the man’s been a little distracted with all of the economic “doom and gloom” going on back home in the United States. Still, he hasn’t apparently backed down from his campaign promises (which would never be a surprise if he had). To the contrary, he appears to be seriously considering the suggestions that the US Commander (Gen. Stanley McChrystal) is making – sending 30,000-40,000 more troops. This number would put total NATO presence in the country to just over the former USSR’s commitment in the early 1980’s at 120,000 troops – a war that ended in failure. The US Commander’s strategy is vastly different then the Soviet strategy, his being to build havens for the Afghan people to rebuild and not the total defeat of the Taliban insurgency. The issue with this strategy is that the Taliban is in it for the long haul while NATO’s commitment for a similar time table is highly circumspect.
Obama has been told flat out by his commanders that the current strategy in Afghanistan is failure. He can now do one of three things;
- Continue as is – prolonging the inevitable failure in hopes of a shift in regional politics or other miraculous changes
- Take McChrystal’s advice and shift forces
- Close shop and get out of Afghanistan
The Taliban are watching and waiting. They have seen the British come.. and fail. They watched the Soviets come.. and fail. They expect the same to happen to the United States and NATO.
All the while, Obama has to contemplate Iran and what to do there. Any decision made regarding Afghanistan has to take serious consideration in what he might do with Iran. To strike Iran hard and stay in Afghanistan – where a prolonged war he supported and has not taken on as his own in this Presidency will be his trophy.
I’ll talk about Iran in a later post – and God forgive me for making this suggestion because I was for our initial entrance into Afghanistan – but I suggest we pull out of Afghanistan and shift our focus on closing out Iraq and neutralizing the Iranian nuclear threat. We can maintain a minor presence in Afghanistan and advocate for the rights of the Afghanistan people.
