Half-measures in Afghanistan Won’t Get The Job Done

In the October 21 edition of the New York Times online,  Nicholas Kristof wrote a column contending that complying with Gen. Stanley McChyrstal’s request for an additional 40,000 troops in Afganistan is a bad idea.  Perhaps President Obama read that column, too.  Though it is not confirmed, and a formal announcement will probably be delayed until after the Afghan run-offs on November 7, it seems that the president will not be sending the requested number.  Kristof’s proposal, and to his credit, there is one, is to leave the troops at the existing levels.  He writes:

My suggestion is that we scale back our aims, for Afghanistan is not going to be a shining democracy any time soon. We should keep our existing troops to protect the cities (but not the countryside), while ramping up the training of the Afghan Army — and helping it absorb more Pashtuns to increase its legitimacy in the south.

Here is where the president disagrees with Kristof: it appears that he will be sending some soldiers, sometime.  Obama clearly intends to implement the same strategy of securing the cities and abandoning the countryside.  To his credit, he wants to do it in style, with higher troop levels: the so-called “McChrystal-Light”  plan.  If he goes ahead with such a mini-surge, he will be able to argue that it comprehends more than the anti-terrorist proposal advocated by his vice president, without alienating the left-wing of his party.  But though this approach may play well at home for political reasons, it leaves some troubling military questions unanswered.

Neither Obama nor Kristof have mentioned for how long and to what ultimate end we are to leave our troops in maintenance mode .  There can be little disagreement about the dim immediate future of Afghanistan’s democracy, however that is not primary goal of the effort there.  Bush sent combat troops to Afghanistan to rout Al Qaeda and its protector, the Taliban, viewed generally (given their actions on September 11, 2001) as threats to world peace.  While  progress has been made, there is more to do.  But Kristof and the current president would see our relatively small (even if slightly augmented in the coming months) combat force hamstrung in the cities while leaving an unchecked Al Qaeda and Taliban free to regroup and multiply, as they surely will, in the hinterland.  What then? 

It is hard to believe that even with our help the Afghan army will be capable anytime soon of fending off an beefed-up Taliban/Al Qaeda.  Indeed, only this week a group of Taliban terrorists dressed as Afghani police were able to launch a rocket attack on a Kabul hotel that housed U.N. election workers, killing 8.  With no one guarding the countryside, the imminent  threat to our our soldiers and Afghani civilians would be all but overwhelming.  Our troops are struggling now, and even if, say for argument’s sake, only 20,000 more soldiers are needed to stabilize the cities, what will happen when the terrorists are effectively given carte blanche outside them?  Nothing good, we can be sure.  As Charles Krauthammer has noted, next door in Pakistan, the Pakistani army is fighting a war against the same enemy.  But if Taliban strongholds in Afghanistan are abandoned by the Americans, the Pakistanis could soon be forced to fight a cross-border war – something they are ill-equipped to do.  The possibility of an ensuing Pakistani collapse is terrifying.

Kristof’s college experiences sneaking around the country notwithstanding, he has no expertise as a military commander on the ground In Afganistan.  Gen. McChrystal  does.  And while the president’s salute this morning to American troops fallen in Afghanistan was right and honorable,  his prolonged hesitation deciding what to do about their comrades is not.  By all means, let him deliberate, consider, and even test.  But then he should act. On Monday before a naval audience, he said, “I won’t risk your lives unless it is absolutely necessary.  And if it is necessary, we will back you up to the hilt.”  Well, 54 Americans have died this month; soldiers there are risking their lives every day.  In March, in August , and throughout his 2008 presidential campaign, Obama called the effort in Afghanistan “a war of necessity.”    But sending less than the requested number of troops is not hilt-level support.  If the war in Afghanistan is indeed a “war of necessity” as President Obama has said over and again, let’s give General McChrystal what he needs to win it.