At Last, The Afghanistan Plan

I wanted to hear the President's speech before commenting on his long-awaited plan for Afghanistan, though most of the details had already been made public.  In particular, I was interested in what he might say about Pakistan in the context of this Afghanistan decision. Any successful effort against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in the region will have to involve both countries.  Militarily, Pakistan will have to do its part in the border regions as U.S. forces and the Afghans they may train do theirs.  The stability of both governments is essential but contrarily, the military action Pakistan needs to undertake will not be helpful to its already fragile stability.  On this point, I was disappointed; the President's nostrums about aid to, and cooperation with, Pakistan failed to draw the strong link that's needed. 

Back home in the U.S., everyone will have his own slant, based on political dogmas and received wisdom, but I want to focus on the Democrats who are opposing the deployment of more troops.  They need to face a few realities.

First: It's true that Obama ends up "owning" the war at this point, but that should not be a surprise.  Weren't they listening?  This is the war he said during the campaign was truly important; now, he's just sticking to his guns.  He reiterated the argument at length during his speech at West Point.  Unusual, but not impossible, for a politician to follow through on campaign promises that turn out to be politically unpopular.  Democrats who stand on one principle (which is, evidently, "war is never the answer,") ought to appreciate Obama's insisting on a different one. 

Second:  Even if that weren't the case, any move to pull immediately out of Afghanistan would be unwise.  It would mean our efforts to date had accomplished nothing, it would leave a job unfinished, and it would create a situation on the ground that can easily be exploited by the Taliban and/or al-Queda.  Like it or not, we have to live with the Bush Administration's misjudgments -- that the war would be quickly and cheaply, nothwithstanding the experience of many other powers in Afghanistan -- and make the best of them in order to preserve a degree of U.S. credibility in the region and in the world.   A President inheriting a war from a predecessor will always be hard put to end it.

Third, Democrats ought to see here an opportunity to overcome their party's consistent reputation for being weak on defense and national security.  True or not, that's the broad public perception.   The President is (largely) heeding his military advisors, is focusing on a military-strategic goal (weakening terrorism), but at the same time hopes to set specific goals to be achieved as the benchmarks of success, and a timetable for finishing the job.  It's a promise to square the circle:  we're determined to stay the course, yet we plan to be out within a couple of years.  If he makes it good, the gain in national security will be the chief benefit, yet a "win" in the Democratic column could help achieve a better balance between public perceptions of the two parties on this set of issues.  If he fails, the political point is lost, perhaps, but not so disastrously as if he had acted against his military strategists' recommendations.

Meanwhile, as the buildup goes forward, we can of course expect our enemies in Afghanistan/Pakistan to step up efforts to carry off splashy setbacks to U.S. efforts, especially in the period before most of the new forces can be deployed.  We may hope that journalists and politicians won't succumb to hysteria each time one of these events happens; we will be disappointed.

Comments

[Joseph Lott]

The speech was good but boring. It got the job done. The American people are likely to give him until the mid-term elections to see if this works. My disappointment is with the nation-building commitment. This counter-insurgency argument says we must stabilize Afghanistan in order to stop Al Qaeda from returning. However, if we give up on the idea of winning hearts and minds and focus solely on counter-terrorism, we could avoid much of the resource drain in both dollars and lives. Hold Kabul with a few brigades, darken the skies with drones, subvert the tired Taliban, pay off the warlords - all these require much less from the American people than ramping up to 100,000 troops in country to chase a few thousand terrorists and Taliban zealots. While we'd all like to see a new democracy and a thriving middle class in Afghanistan, none of those things are likely to happen until the Afghan people want them to and take charge themselves. Still, Obama can try his counter-insurgency effort until 2011. It it works, great. If not, the goal becomes withdrawal and we end up with a tacit change of goal to counter-terrorism. Of course, this assumes the American people are still with him by then.

[Jhawk23]

Agreed, I don't think we really stand a chance of winning hearts and minds, but I'm content with that aspect of the plan, which I see as more focused on providing security to the people (in certain areas at least). That's a tried-and-true element of any counterinsurgency effort; an arm's-length effort seldom if ever succeeds.
Obama's trying to have it both ways here; his critics and supporters alike will have a field day a year or two from now, dissecting every detail so they can argue about whether the effort "succeeded" or not. Obama says Aghanistan isn't Vietnam, and it isn't, except in this respect: This end game sounds to me a lot like the end game in Vietnam - the door is open to claim victory and get out quickly. If we avoid that outcome here, that's a big plus for him.