I see that we are leaving Afghanistan earlier than expected, and possibly before the job is done, and that Defense Secretary Panetta told the news media before we told our allies.* The latter is somewhat similar to what we did back in 2009, when we abandoned the ABM system we were planning against missiles from Iran and other such countries. Important parts of the system were to be located in Poland and the Czech Republic, and the governments in those countries had taken huge political risks by agreeing to participate. But we just changed our mind and too bad for them.** (A couple more things like this, and we’ll need that "Reset button" for our friends.)
Basically, it appears that Afghanistan just isn’t that important to President Obama any more. Or at least it isn’t as important as it was back in 2008 when he could use the “good war” of Afghanistan to beat up the Republicans in comparison to the “bad war” of Iraq.
I certainly understand that relations with Afghani President Karzai are not good, but diplomacy was where the Obama administration was supposed to be so much better than George W. Bush. And if President Karzai was elected in a corrupt election, why didn’t we do more to make sure the Afghani presidential election in August of 2009 was honestly run?
In any case, the Administration says we can cut back in Afghanistan because we are succeeding. Things do appear to be getting better in some parts of Afghanistan, but I doubt we are “succeeding” enough to justify the cutbacks that President Obama seems to want, both in terms of the number of troops in Afghanistan and what they should be doing. It would be great if the Afghani forces were ready by next year to allow U.S. troops to switch to a purely advisory role, but I don’t think many people believe they will be. And if we try to turn the fighting over to the Afghanis before they are ready, the result won’t be good.
But President Obama also says that we have to cut back in Afghanistan because we need to spend the money at home. No, that’s wrong. If we need to be in Afghanistan, we have enough money to be there. Defense comes first, not last. If our defense requires it, we can do it – if we want to.
Which brings me back to where I started. As I said above, when President Obama was running for president, he would compare the “good war” of Afghanistan with the “bad war” in Iraq. When he first came into office, he sent more troops to Afghanistan, and he affirmed the counterinsurgency strategy we had belatedly started to implement in Afghanistan. Later in 2009 year, after a very long further review of our policy in Afghanistan, President Obama once again affirmed the counterinsurgency strategy, and he sent more troops to Afghanistan for a surge. But this time he hesitated a little. He didn’t send as many troops as were requested, and he announced when they would be coming home at the same time he said they were going. This was a little unusual. The idea of counterinsurgency operations is to protect the people. But here was President Obama telling both the Afghani people we were going to protect and the enemy we were going to protect them from, when the protection was going to end. There was a disconnect between those that I have yet to figure out.
But now, we are apparently done with counterinsurgency operations (based on the President’s defense budget for next year), and we are coming home from Afghanistan, apparently even faster than we previously said (or at least faster than we led people to believe). Which makes me wonder why we did all that we did in Afghanistan over the last 2-1/2 years if we are leaving now in what seems like a bit of a rush, and regardless of whether we have accomplished what we set out to do.
So why are we leaving now? Is President Obama tired of Afghanistan? I understand why the American people have gotten tired of Afghanistan, especially when the Administration hasn’t spent much time explaining why what we are doing there is important. But presidents are not supposed to give up just because they are tired. Certainly, the American people got tired of Obamacare, but the President didn’t stop on that one. Why is Afghanistan different? If it was important to be there before, why is it not important now?
And don’t tell me it’s because the job is almost done. As I said before, nobody really believes that. Don’t tell me it’s because Navy SEALs killed Osama Bin Laden. Hiding out like he was, he couldn’t have been providing real leadership to Al Qaeda for years. Certainly, when George W. Bush was president, there were plenty of Democrats willing to say that killing Osama Bin Laden was all that important. I can’t believe that they changed their mind just because we have a Democrat in the White House.
So why are we leaving now? I don’t want to be cynical, but I almost wonder if it’s just that President Obama doesn’t care about Afghanistan now that it’s not an issue to use against President Bush. Or maybe he really didn’t know what was going on in Afghanistan when he was running for president, and it has taken him three years to decide what he wants to do.
Whatever the reason for our leaving, and the clumsy way we are doing it (or at least announced it), if we are leaving before the job we promised to do id done, the results will not be good – either for the people of Afghanistan or for the United States.
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* Adam Entous, “Panetta Draws Fire Over Afghanistan Shift,” The Wall Street Journal, February 3, 2012.
** Marc Champion and Peter Spiegel, “U.S. Missile U-Turn Roils Allies,” The Wall Street Journal, September 18, 2009; “Obama’s Missile Offense,” The Wall Street Journal, September 18, 2009.
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