Obama’s Afghan exit strategy by Sultan M Hali

After three months of vacillation, U.S. President Obama has finally unveiled his new Afghan strategy, which envisages a troop surge by 30,000 soldiers within the next six months and an ultimate withdrawal commencing in 18 months.
The U.S. commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal had requested for 40,000 additional troops in early September, yet the pronouncement has taken more than eleven weeks. U.S. decision makers have faced troop surge earlier too. There have been two troop surges in Afghanistan. The 2007 troop surge in Iraq generated heavy debate although it is supposed to have contributed to U.S. success in Iraq. The Democrats in U.S. Congress at that time opposed the troop surge, yet now they will have to weigh in favour of the surge since they rule the roost. The main constraint is budgetary. According to media reports, U.S. Budget Director Peter Orszag was invited by President Obama to sit in for weighing the budget consequences of the troop surge. The War in Afghanistan has already cost $232,578,144,445. White House budget analysts have estimated that it may cost as much as $1 million a year for each soldier sent to Afghanistan—on top of the $227 billion already appropriated for the war from 2001 through 2009. U.S. taxpayers will have to tighten their belts in an already dismal and grim economic crunch they are facing. According to reports, a group of top Democrats led by U.S. Republican David Obey of Wisconsin proposes a surtax of 1 to 5% (depending on the income bracket) to help pay for the war. The real debate is whether the new US Afghan strategy would be effective and what would be its consequences on Pakistan’s war against terror. The dilemma has been between counter insurgency versus counter terrorism. Does President Obama place emphasis on defeating the Taliban or al-Qaeda? The 30,000 troop increase indicates the president has chosen the middle road—less than the 40,000 troops requested by General Stanley McChrystal, but more than the 15,000 that reportedly the President and Vice President Joe Biden advocated. An emphasis on the exit strategy is that the troop surge will include military trainers, who would train the Afghan Army to take over the security duties themselves. The point is if the Afghans could not be trained in the last eight years plus, what dent another year make in their military prowess? It must be understood that defeating the Taliban or al-Qaeda with this dispensation 100,000 U.S. and about 45,000 NATO troops is well nigh impossible. U.S. analysts have themselves admitted that they missed the opportunity of capturing Osama bin-Laden when they bombed Tora Bora into oblivion in 2001-2002. Their opportunity for victory lay then but U.S. chose to divert its attention to Iraq. Now the twelve-headed Hydra has grown strong and nearly invincible while U.S. resolve to fight has been weakened. The question being asked is: “Who would the ethnic Pashtun areas back, the U.S./NATO forces or the Taliban?” The U.S. is about to cut its losses and run while the Taliban would persist in the region. General McChrystal has already warned: “A foreign army alone cannot beat an insurgency; the insurgency in Afghanistan requires an Afghan solution. This is their war’’ and any success must come “by, with, and through the Afghan government.’’ In other words, without a legitimate and credible Afghan partner, that counterinsurgency strategy is fundamentally flawed. The main input in this strategy is a crackdown on rampant corruption in Afghanistan. Mr. Obama is expected to set goals for good governance by the Karzai administration. The current Afghan government is neither legitimate nor credible. It has recently been installed by nothing more than a fraudulent political default. President Hamid Karzai now knowingly presides over a culture of corruption, an opium-dependent economy and, so far, has shown neither the credibility nor political will to rid his government of its corrupt warlords and crony power brokers, providing slim hope for “an Afghan solution.’’ Coming to Pakistan’s concerns, the initial batch of 9,000 Marines is being sent to southern Afghanistan, doubling the size of the U.S. force in the Helmand province. This may force more militants to ingress into Balochistan and add to Pakistan’s problems in the strife-torn province. Pakistan is engaged in a critical war in South Waziristan to eliminate the miscreants. In a blunt warning to Pakistan, U.S. President Barack Obama has said its use of terror groups like Lashkar-e-Toiba to advance policy goals “cannot continue”, making it clear that Washington may be impelled to use any means at its disposal to rout insurgents if Islamabad cannot deliver. The warning, seen in light of the troop surge would send the wrong signals to Pakistan that the additional soldiers are meant to deal with Pakistan. Additionally, setting a date for withdrawal sends exactly the wrong message to both US allies and opponents in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the entire region, all of whom currently doubt whether America is committed to winning this war. This concern was echoed by Republican Senator John McCain too, who stipulated that a withdrawal date only emboldens Al Qaeda and the Taliban, while dispiriting the US-Afghan partners and making it less likely that they will risk their lives to take the side of USA in this fight. General Viktor Yermakov Commander of the Soviet Forces in Afghanistan, commenting on Obama’s exit strategy on CNN, said that the U.S. is repeating the Soviet blunder of adding more troops in Afghanistan. There is already a rift within the Obama administration regarding the new strategy.

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