Four years ago this fall, Barack Obama spent months deciding what to do in Afghanistan. (See here, here, and here.) When he finally made a decision, he split the baby in half. He promised a surge, but he also promised to take the troops out right away.
On July 11, both Democratic Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Republican Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee called on President Obama to decide on the number of troops that will stay in Afghanistan after we withdraw from combat next year.
Senator Menendez said, “The lack of clarity on this point has led to too much hedging in the region.” He also said, “Afghans who may otherwise be interested in building a fledgling democracy want to know that they will not be abandoned by the United States as the Taliban claims they will be.”
Senator Corker agreed: “This continued looking at our navel, trying to make a decision, having competing forces at the White House, is hurting us, it’s hurting our efforts in Afghanistan, it’s hurting our military and it’s hurting our allies.”
Not only is the President delaying decision, the Administration has floated the idea that we might leave Afghanistan completely at the end of 2014 (as we did in Iraq at the end of 2011). While the theory is that the Administration is bluffing, and using the so-called “zero option” as a threat to pressure Afghan President Karzai, it’s unclear. As I have said before, I think President Obama would be happy to leave (a/k/a abandon) Afghanistan as soon as possible. It served its purpose as a campaign issue in 2008. His interest in it now doesn’t seem to be there.
Ryan Crocker, former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan (and Iraq, among other countries), said this about the zero option idea:
"If it's a tactic, it is mindless; if it is a strategy, it is criminal.
Nothing could encourage the Taliban more. The Pakistanis [who are helping the Taliban] will dig in harder. It will send Karzai in completely the wrong direction.
It invokes memories of the early 1990s. It's as if we're telling the Afghans, ‘We're tired, we're going home, screw you.’”
As The Washington Post noted in an editorial yesterday:
“A full withdrawal would be at odds with the strategic partnership pact already signed by the two governments and NATO’s agreement in June on a post-2014 ‘concept of operations’ in the country – not to mention President Obama’s repeated public pledges that the United States would continue to stand behind Afghanistan.”
How can we expect our allies, who we want to stay in Afghanistan, to agree to stay, when we won’t tell them what we are going to do? Even more importantly, as Senator Menendez said, how can we expect the Afghani people to work with us when they don’t know how many of us, if any, will still there 18 months from now?
We have invested hundreds of billions of dollars in Afghanistan. We have invested thousands of lives, of Americans and our allies, in Afghanistan. Most importantly, we pledged our word and our honor to the Afghani people. President Obama needs to reaffirm those investments and that pledge – and he needs to do it now. Otherwise, those dollars and those lives will be wasted, and our word and our commitment will be devalued. If President Obama fails to follow through in Afghanistan, when we promise help in the future, who will believe us? When we ask for help, who will give it?
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