Examining Obama’s Afghan Plan: Introduction
AFTER NEARLY TWO YEARS of campaigning on a platform of hasty withdrawal from Iraq and a refocusing of American efforts on Afghanistan, a country Democrats have spent years referring to as the location of “the real War on Terror,” President Barry Obama has come out with an overview of his administration’s strategy for the region.
Unfortunately, as often seems to be the case when Obama policy prescriptions are finally made public after months of innuendo, the administration’s plan for Afghanistan (and the actual central front in the War on Terror, Pakistan) is largely made up of platitudes and half-measures, and reflects a lack of understanding about – or an overall unwillingness to accept – the facts on the ground in the region and the gravity of America’s fight there.
AMERICA’S GOAL IN THE REGION, according to Obama, is “to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future.” In pursuit of this nebulous goal, which can be categorically filed under “Would take far more time and dedication than Obama (and, unfortunately, the American population) would ever willingly put into it,” the president laid out several points of emphasis.
These points, each of which will be addressed in an installment over the next week, can be grouped into the following five goals:
- Implementing a ’surge’ of forces in Afghanistan (and augmenting that with a so-called “civilian surge”);
- Growing the Afghan Security Forces, both police and army, by such numbers and with such speed that they will be able to assume responsibility securing large portions of the country in a very short time;
- Attempting to achieve reconciliation with less-hardline Taliban militants and promoting an open, honest, and effective Afghan national government;
- Expanding international support for the Afghan mission and convincing both NATO and regional players to take a more active role in combating terror and shaping the Afghan state; and, perhaps most importantly,
- Eliminating Taliban and al Qaeda sanctuaries in Pakistan, while simultaneously promoting democratic order within that fractured Islamic state.
Unfortunately, as the next five installments on this topic will demonstrate, President Obama’s strategy as currently laid out will do little to make a difference on any of these fronts.
Coming next: Examining Obama’s Afghan Plan: A ‘Surge’ in Soldiers and Civilians
