Louisville Courier Journal Editorial: "[POTUS] Barack Obama's Conflict".
Afghan escalation
Even in the eternal fog of war, one thing about Afghanistan is apparent: It is now Barack Obama's conflict.
The President announced a military build-up Tuesday night, when he told the Corps of Cadets at West Point that he is authorizing deployment of 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan.
The strategy he outlined involves intensified fighting — to reverse alarming gains by a revitalized Taliban insurgency and to destroy remaining pockets of al-Qaida fighters. But it also aims to strengthen training and readiness of Afghan forces, to prod the Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai to curtail corruption and to build public support, to provide greater aid to civilians, to increase assistance from neighboring Pakistan and from NATO allies, and to lay the foundation for a U.S. withdrawal beginning in mid-2011.
Mr. Obama, in a word, is betting that he can escalate the conflict, achieve quick military and diplomatic progress, and then leave. It is not an irrational belief, and the White House insists it represents the best choice from a menu of bad options. But it is nonetheless a very high-risk gamble whose fragile prospects of success depend on a lot of other people fulfilling assigned roles.
First, Americans must hope that the presence of 100,000 U.S. troops and another 40,000 foreign soldiers will not actually fuel insurgency, as occupying forces often do. Mr. Karzai, who has seemed inept and at best indifferent to corruption and drug trafficking, must respond effectively to American demands that he establish legitimacy in his people's eyes. NATO allies must commit to a stronger military effort, even though the war is deeply unpopular in Europe and Canada. American domestic support must remain strong enough to permit prosecution and funding of the war.
The biggest wild card, however, may be Pakistan. Indeed, it is tempting to conclude that Pakistan is really at the heart of the President's thinking. The spillover of al-Qaida and Taliban forcesinto Pakistan has triggered terrorist bombings and fighting in Pakistan and nurtured a nightmare scenario in which a nuclear-armed state falls into the hands of Islamist fanatics. Persuading the skeptical Pakistani political and military leadership to fight the Taliban and al-Qaida more aggressively is a key to the President's plans.
Americans of all political persuasions should hope the mission can be achieved and that a withdrawal can begin in less than two years. Surely, the entire nation yearns for the safety and success of the young men and women who must wage the fight against the enemy in Afghanistan.
But the President's new directives rest heavily on military progress to achieve political results. As Vietnam and Iraq demonstrated, that is a precarious premise.
An alternative approach, one that we would have preferred, would have been to push Afghanistan harder toward a broad political settlement, even if it meant trying to negotiate with less radical factions of the Taliban. Meanwhile, perhaps military operations could have been gradually reduced to air strikes, missile attacks and operations by special forces that pinpoint al-Qaida units, not just in Afghanistan but also in Somalia, Yemen and other countries where the terrorist organization has established bases.
Finally, whether one agrees or differs with the President's decision, Afghanistan is yet another example of the wreckage left Mr. Obama by his predecessor — two wars that were going badly, economic crisis and soaring national debt.
In the case of Afghanistan, President George W. Bush appropriately ordered an invasion in 2001 to destroy the al-Qaida terrorist network which had planned the 9/11 attacks and to depose the Taliban regime that had given the plotters safe haven. However, as a recent Senate Foreign Relations Committee report makes clear, the Bush administration deployed too few troops to the mountainous area where al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was holed up in December 2001, with the result that bin Laden and other senior al-Qaida and Taliban officials escaped.
The failure to capture or kill bin Laden, the report concludes, strengthened al-Qaida, eliminated prospects for a quick U.S. exit from Afghanistan and triggered an influx of militants into Pakistan. Moreover, the Bush administration's misguided shift of attention to Iraq led to a long period of neglect in Afghanistan.
But that is the past, and that was Mr. Bush's war. Now it is Mr. Obama's.
Even in the eternal fog of war, one thing about Afghanistan is apparent: It is now Barack Obama's conflict.
The President announced a military build-up Tuesday night, when he told the Corps of Cadets at West Point that he is authorizing deployment of 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan.
The strategy he outlined involves intensified fighting — to reverse alarming gains by a revitalized Taliban insurgency and to destroy remaining pockets of al-Qaida fighters. But it also aims to strengthen training and readiness of Afghan forces, to prod the Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai to curtail corruption and to build public support, to provide greater aid to civilians, to increase assistance from neighboring Pakistan and from NATO allies, and to lay the foundation for a U.S. withdrawal beginning in mid-2011.
Mr. Obama, in a word, is betting that he can escalate the conflict, achieve quick military and diplomatic progress, and then leave. It is not an irrational belief, and the White House insists it represents the best choice from a menu of bad options. But it is nonetheless a very high-risk gamble whose fragile prospects of success depend on a lot of other people fulfilling assigned roles.
First, Americans must hope that the presence of 100,000 U.S. troops and another 40,000 foreign soldiers will not actually fuel insurgency, as occupying forces often do. Mr. Karzai, who has seemed inept and at best indifferent to corruption and drug trafficking, must respond effectively to American demands that he establish legitimacy in his people's eyes. NATO allies must commit to a stronger military effort, even though the war is deeply unpopular in Europe and Canada. American domestic support must remain strong enough to permit prosecution and funding of the war.
The biggest wild card, however, may be Pakistan. Indeed, it is tempting to conclude that Pakistan is really at the heart of the President's thinking. The spillover of al-Qaida and Taliban forcesinto Pakistan has triggered terrorist bombings and fighting in Pakistan and nurtured a nightmare scenario in which a nuclear-armed state falls into the hands of Islamist fanatics. Persuading the skeptical Pakistani political and military leadership to fight the Taliban and al-Qaida more aggressively is a key to the President's plans.
Americans of all political persuasions should hope the mission can be achieved and that a withdrawal can begin in less than two years. Surely, the entire nation yearns for the safety and success of the young men and women who must wage the fight against the enemy in Afghanistan.
But the President's new directives rest heavily on military progress to achieve political results. As Vietnam and Iraq demonstrated, that is a precarious premise.
An alternative approach, one that we would have preferred, would have been to push Afghanistan harder toward a broad political settlement, even if it meant trying to negotiate with less radical factions of the Taliban. Meanwhile, perhaps military operations could have been gradually reduced to air strikes, missile attacks and operations by special forces that pinpoint al-Qaida units, not just in Afghanistan but also in Somalia, Yemen and other countries where the terrorist organization has established bases.
Finally, whether one agrees or differs with the President's decision, Afghanistan is yet another example of the wreckage left Mr. Obama by his predecessor — two wars that were going badly, economic crisis and soaring national debt.
In the case of Afghanistan, President George W. Bush appropriately ordered an invasion in 2001 to destroy the al-Qaida terrorist network which had planned the 9/11 attacks and to depose the Taliban regime that had given the plotters safe haven. However, as a recent Senate Foreign Relations Committee report makes clear, the Bush administration deployed too few troops to the mountainous area where al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was holed up in December 2001, with the result that bin Laden and other senior al-Qaida and Taliban officials escaped.
The failure to capture or kill bin Laden, the report concludes, strengthened al-Qaida, eliminated prospects for a quick U.S. exit from Afghanistan and triggered an influx of militants into Pakistan. Moreover, the Bush administration's misguided shift of attention to Iraq led to a long period of neglect in Afghanistan.
But that is the past, and that was Mr. Bush's war. Now it is Mr. Obama's.
Labels: News reporting
posted by KYJurisDoctor at 8:29 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home