Obama would be well-advised to cut America’s losses and retreat ASAP; to let the Afghans govern themselves however they like; and to rely on Special Forces and aerial drones to get al Qaeda.
[Without [or even with] more forces, failure in Afghanistan is likely, TIJ, September 23, 2009]
In light of President Obama’s ongoing review of troop levels in Afghanistan, I published the above cartoon (accompanied by a quote from an earlier commentary) on Saturday to reiterate my abiding fear that it would be a march of folly for him to deploy more troops.
Therefore, I was extremely heartened when Obama dispatched his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, to several talk shows on Sunday to telegraph the following change of course:
It would be reckless to make a decision on U.S. troop levels if in fact you haven’t done a thorough analysis of whether in fact there’s an Afghan partner ready to fill that space that U.S. troops would create and become a true partner in governing…
The central question is not how much troops you have but whether in fact there’s an Afghan partner.
This clearly indicates that Obama is hedging against sending troops. And he’s doing this by changing the discussion from how many troops will be needed to win this unwinnable war to whether it’s a war even worth fighting if the Afghan government is terminally corrupt and wholly discredited.
Moreover, nothing demonstrates that this change is now afoot quite like Sen John Kerry, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, joining forces with Emanuel yesterday by providing this political cover for Obama on CBS from the war zone in Afghanistan:
It would be entirely irresponsible for the president of the United States to commit more troops to this country when we don’t even have an election finished and know who the president is and what kind of government we’re working with. I believe it is critical for us to be satisfied that the reform efforts that are absolutely mandatory within the government here are in fact going to take place and be fully implemented.
Ironically, all indications are that President Hamid Karzai is determined to steal the disputed August 2009 election just as Kerry and others accused George W. Bush of stealing the November 2000 US presidential election. And anyone who believes that he’s going to implement reforms to combat corruption must also believe in tooth fairies.
Actually, Karzai seems to be banking on ruling Kabul and other (fertile, poppy-growing) areas of Afghanistan (with the help of just a few thousand US troops) instead of fighting the Taliban and other warlords for control of the entire country (with the help of the over 100,000 troops whose deployment is now under review). Because only this explains why he is so loathed to accept any UN-mandated recount of any portion of the vote that might compel him to go through a runoff election, which, given the extent of his alleged fraud in the first round, he would probably lose.
Meanwhile, I should have seen Obama’s resistance to sending more troops coming after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the following in a September 21 interview with the NewsHour on PBS, which was featured under the headline “Clinton: No troop moves until Afghan election resolved”:
You know corruption, I have labeled a national security threat… We’re not going to make any decisions of any significance until we know the outcome of this election.
In any event, as things stand, Karzai’s political ambition and endemic corruption in his government may provide just the pretext Obama needs to do the right thing: change the strategy for fighting America’s (global) war on terrorism from nation building in Afghanistan to launching strategic strikes against al-Qaeda wherever on the globe they rear their terrorist heads.
So here’s to Obama announcing this change and plans for a commensurate withdrawal of troops in due course….
Related commentaries:
failure in Afghanistan is likely…
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.