Withdrawal Time for NATO in Afghanistan

In announcing on Wednesday, June 22, the withdrawal of one-third of American troops from Afghanistan by the end of the summer of 2012, when the presidential campaign is in full swing in the United States, Barack Obama responds for the first time to a domestic political imperative.

This decision, which will clear up the “surge” — the White House’s decision to increase troops in 2009 — should allow him, he hopes, to gain an edge over opponents when he begins his fight for re-election. This decade-long war, which has already taken the lives of over 1,500 American soldiers and cost some $450 billion, is increasingly unpopular. It was George W. Bush’s war, but the “surge” was Barack Obama’s idea. He must erase that thought from voters’ minds. The elimination of Osama bin Laden, the former head of al-Qaida, has allowed him to take that step. It is doubtful that President Obama will completely succeed in doing this because he has taken what appears to be only a half-step. In his 13-minute speech, he did not answer any critical questions about Afghanistan’s future, the ability of the Afghan forces to assume the tasks that will be transferred to them in 2014, the terms of dialogue with the Taliban or the means of managing Pakistan’s double plays.

Informed ahead of time of the content of the U.S. president’s speech in a telephone conversation with him Wednesday, President Nicolas Sarkozy followed in his footsteps Thursday morning and announced the parallel phasing out of French troops in Afghanistan. This decision, consistent with the objectives agreed upon at the NATO summit in Lisbon in November 2010, makes sense. Relatively speaking, since the French contingent consists of fewer than 4,000 men, it follows the principle of “we go in together, we go out together.”

Mr. Sarkozy did not show it, but we can imagine a tiny bit of frustration on his part. To the Americans, who complained for a long time of Europeans’ lackluster participation in the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, President Sarkozy, once elected, responded and agreed to increase the French contingent, consistent with the American “surge.” He must today re-align himself with Washington, without the satisfaction of a mission accomplished.

The French president can take comfort in the knowledge that he is also getting rid of a thorny issue in the 2012 electoral campaign. The pace of French casualties (62 deaths) has accelerated in recent months, and despite all of the official efforts to control the communication of the human and financial cost of this war, as well as the paucity of the debate in parliament on the French commitment, the national consensus on the war in Afghanistan has not been shaken. But in order for this withdrawal not to turn into a defeat, the West must take a much stronger interest in dialogue with the Taliban, with the aim of reaching a political compromise. And it must do so before it’s too late.