Ramping Up for Withdrawal

It would be interesting to know the success rate that Barack Obama predicts for his new Afghanistan strategy. Fifty-fifty? Less? More? It seems that he doesn’t believe in unconditional success. Obama gave 30,000 more troops their marching orders, and asserts that in July 2011 they will begin to come home. Of course, Obama made this conditional on the ground situation at the time. He considers this ‘the beginning of the withdrawal.’ There is no word yet as to the end.

However, now the deadline is out there and it’s absurdly precise – exactly eight years to the month after the war began; a war in which every battle plan rapidly became scrap paper. A glance at America’s electoral calendar gives a clue as to why the withdrawal will be set in motion during the summer of 2011. That is when the run up to Obama’s second term will commence and the next presidential campaign begins. He will need a turning point in Afghanistan by then because, as of now, this war belongs to him.

It’s entirely believable that Obama had a hard time making the decision to, yet again, increase troop strength in the Hindu Kush. In contrast to George W. Bush, Obama’s instincts often shy away from military adventurism, but, as we see, he wound up going in that direction anyway. He has basically doubled down on his bet: he must hope that 30,000 more American soldiers plus whatever little bit his NATO partners can ante up will suffice to turn the tide in Afghanistan. Yet there are many reasons to doubt that it will.

Favoring his bet, we have the fact that at the beginning of 2007 the chances of George W. Bush’s surge in Iraq to succeed were hardly any better. Yet, relative order was restored by Bush’s decision, despite similar dim prospects at the time. The situation in Iraq has stabilized to the extent that Obama can now begin a phase out of U.S. occupation. By next summer, the majority of U.S. troops will be out of Iraq and the last ones will leave by the end of 2011. It wasn’t that long ago that many had given up on the Iraq War.

However, the concept of hope is by no means a strategy. Obama didn’t address what else has to happen in Afghanistan besides sending in more American troops. Increase the number of civilian aid workers? More intelligent redevelopment? Ask the ten-dollar Taliban to lay down their arms because the CIA pays better? Create a political strategy more agreeable to Afghani tribal culture than the inane centralized setup offered by their lunchtime president, Hamid Karzai? Develop a regional diplomacy that embraces Afghanistan’s neighbors? Generate a plan to stabilize a nuclear Pakistan and deprive the Taliban of a safe haven? Obama hardly mentioned any of this in his speech.

We get the impression that he’s angling towards something else: improve the military situation to the point where Afghan security forces, having completed a number of fast-track training courses, are capable of taking the field against the Taliban themselves. Is Obama sending in more troops today just so that he can withdraw them tomorrow? Friends and enemies alike will perceive it that way: America’s military goal reduced to an orderly withdrawal.

That, in turn, brings us to Obama’s second wager. The president is betting that his war-weary Democratic colleagues will forgive his military adventure in the Hindu Kush, provided he shows them even the vaguest of exit plans. By sending in more troops, Obama has angered a large majority of his own party who no longer see any sense in a protracted war in the Hindu Kush. In doing so, the president is risking the unity and backing of his own camp. He needs both for his domestic development agenda; he needs every vote he can get, and not just for healthcare reform.

Obama’s Afghanistan plans satisfy nobody in the United States: liberals are against an expansion of the war, Republicans say announcing a withdrawal date shows weakness, and the people have other worries induced by the economic crisis.

Fifty-fifty won’t be enough. Obama has to win both bets.