President Obama soon must make one of his most important
national security decisions: how to proceed in Afghanistan, a
crucial theater in the war against al-Qaeda. This week the
President received an assessment of the war from General Stanley
McChrystal, his recently appointed commander in Afghanistan. While
the details of this report remain classified, it is believed to set
the framework for an expanded military effort within a new
counterinsurgency strategy that puts a premium on protecting the
Afghan people from Taliban terrorism and intimidation. To protect
vital national interests by defeating al-Qaeda and its Taliban
allies, President Obama must give his military commanders the best
chance for success--not accede to advisers motivated by political
expediency who would block additional troops and abandon the
Administration's new Afghanistan strategy before it can be
implemented.
Putting Afghanistan on the Right
Path
The Obama Administration deserves praise for recognizing that
Afghanistan needed more high-level attention, resources, and U.S.
troops after conducting a policy review earlier this year--a review
that culminated in the President's decision in March to dispatch an
additional 21,000 troops to Afghanistan. The Administration also
wisely appointed General McChrystal, a cerebral officer with
extensive special operations and counterinsurgency experience who
compiled a stellar record in Iraq, to take the lead in Afghanistan,
working closely with his former superior in Iraq, General David
Petraeus at the Central Command.
Ironically, while the Administration's promising new strategy
has not yet been implemented, the alternative policy suggested by
some critics and some officials within the Administration already
has been tried and failed miserably, not only in Afghanistan, but
in Iraq as well. Adopting this alternative "small footprint"
strategy--which would reduce the number of U.S. troops and scale
back the goals of the war to focus solely on al-Qaeda rather than
the Taliban-led insurgent coalition--is not a realistic option.
Such an abdication would allow the Taliban to carve out
sanctuaries within Afghanistan that would gradually be expanded to
threaten the Afghan government. In turn, the risk of a Taliban
victory would increase, a development that inevitably would bring
al-Qaeda back in force to Afghanistan. A Taliban victory in
Afghanistan also would increase the Islamist threat to Pakistan,
which recently has made progress in combating the Pakistani
Taliban.
A Winnable War
The war in Afghanistan cannot be effectively waged merely with
air power, predator drones, and special forces. In the late 1990s,
the Clinton Administration hurled cruise missiles at easily
replaceable al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan, but this "chuck
and duck" strategy failed to blunt the al-Qaeda threat. The Bush
Administration's minimalist approach to Afghanistan in 2001 was a
contributing factor that allowed Osama bin Laden to escape from his
mountain redoubt at Tora Bora. Afterwards, Washington opted to
focus narrowly on counterterrorism goals in Afghanistan--rather
than counterinsurgency operations--in order to free up military
assets for the war in Iraq. This allowed the Taliban to regroup
across the border in Pakistan and make a violent resurgence. The
"small footprint" strategy also failed in Iraq, before it was
abandoned in favor of General Petraeus's counterinsurgency
strategy, backed by the surge of American troops, in early
2007.
Despite this record of failure, some stubbornly continue to
support an "offshore" strategy for landlocked Afghanistan today.
But half-measures--the hallmark of the "small footprint"
strategy--will not work. Precise intelligence is needed to use
smart bombs smartly. Yet few Afghans would risk their lives to
provide such intelligence unless they are assured of protection
against the Taliban's ruthless retaliation. Providing such
protection requires more American boots on the ground beyond the
68,000 that will be deployed by the end of the year. In Iraq, the
surge of American troops encouraged Iraqis to climb down off the
proverbial fence and offer a flood of valuable intelligence tips
that enabled a much more effective targeting of al-Qaeda in Iraq
and other insurgent forces.
Another critical element necessary to defeat the Taliban is
larger and more effective Afghan security forces, which are
severely undermanned and poorly equipped. Today there is a total of
only 173,000 men in the Afghan army and police, compared to over
600,000 in Iraq, which is a smaller and less populated country. The
new strategy proposed by the McChrystal/Petraeus team is likely to
put a high priority on expanding and improving these forces with
better training, embedded advisers, and the partnering of Afghan
units with nearby American units. The Afghan army and police will
grow stronger, eventually reducing the need for U.S. troops.
The Need for Firm and Patient
Presidential Leadership
The Administration's new strategy for Afghanistan is promising,
but it will not be easily or quickly implemented. Already,
casualties are mounting as American troops have deployed in areas
formerly controlled by the Taliban in southern and eastern
Afghanistan. President Obama must carefully review the McChrystal
report and give his military commanders the resources and troops
they need to effectively carry out their counterinsurgency
strategy. An incremental approach that defers any requested troop
reinforcements could jeopardize the success of the strategy.
To shore up waning popular support for the war, the President
should announce the results of his Afghanistan policy review in a
nationally televised speech. He should explain to the American
people what is at stake in Afghanistan, why it is necessary to make
continued sacrifices to defeat distant enemies there, and why the
war is not only necessary, but winnable. His leadership would lay
the groundwork for a bipartisan approach to Afghanistan that would
attract renewed popular and congressional support. But if the
President fails to rein in wavering members of his own party who
appear to be more interested in an exit plan than a victory plan,
then there is a growing danger that the Administration's new
strategy will be defeated in Washington before it can be fully
implemented in Afghanistan. This would be a disastrous outcome that
would further energize Islamist extremists far beyond Afghanistan
and increase the terrorist threat to the United States and its
allies.
James Phillips is Senior Research Fellow for
Middle Eastern Affairs in the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for
Foreign Policy Studies, a division of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom
Davis Institute for International Studies.