Formulating the Afghan Mission, Part II
President Obama's speech at West Point was a study in isolationism. There was a blueprint for ending our deployment in Iraq, leaving Afghanistan to Afghan security forces and pushing the Pakistani government to fight extremists. We will "surge" for 18 months and then "ebb."
It wasn't sounding especially isolationist when the President enunciated two goals for American policy in Afghanistan:
- To disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and;
- To prevent its capacity to threaten America and our allies in the future.
It didn't sound terribly isolationist when he put forward three elements of strategy:
- A military effort to create the conditions for a transition (to Afghan security control);
- A civilian surge that reinforces positive action, and;
- An effective partnership with Pakistan.
But, said the President-"Our friends have fought and bled and died alongside us in Afghanistan. And now, we must come together to end this war successfully." A retired Army general noted that "success" was used as an adverb to modify "end the war." At least grammatically, the goal was not to succeed in Afghanistan, but to end the war.
That presaged the withdrawal phase of the speech. The President declined to engage in "a nation-building project (in Afghanistan) of up to a decade. I reject this course because it sets goals that are beyond what can be achieved at a reasonable cost, and what we need to achieve to secure our interests."
"Too many Americans are worried about the future facing our children... we can't simply afford to ignore the price of these wars." He talked about a balance between domestic and military spending and said, "We must rebuild our strength here at home. Our prosperity provides a foundation for our power. It pays for our military. It underwrites our diplomacy. It taps the potential of our people, and allows investment in new industry. And it will allow us to compete in this century as successfully as we did in the last. That's why our troop commitment in Afghanistan cannot be open-ended-because the nation that I'm most interested in building is our own."
It cannot be done. America and the West are not at war only with something called "al Qaeda," and "al Qaeda" itself defies quantifiable description. There is loose in the world a fascist, misogynistic, anti-Semitic, anti-Western political agenda that is spreading through schools, the Internet and, in many dictatorial countries, closed media. It appears in Sunni form in al Qaeda and its offshoots and wannabes, but appears as well in Shiite supported forms-Hezbollah and even Sunni Hamas take money, arms and ideology from Iran.
The battle against terrorists and the states that harbor and support them will be long. If we're only planning to give it 18 months and then go home, the "surge" will squander America's most precious domestic resource-our soldiers.
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