TROUBLING ASPECTS OF THE PRESIDENT’S PLAN FOR AFGHANISTAN

Posted By on December 8th, 2009

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.4956/pub_detail.asp
Exclusive: Troubling Aspects of the President’s Plan for Afghanistan
Presidential Policy: Does It Make the Grade?, James Carafano, PhD

Without question, the top news in national security last week was President Obama’s decision on his strategy for Afghanistan. He made the announcement in an address to the nation last Tuesday. Also without question, the president got some things right in the speech. 1) Winning in Afghanistan is a vital interest for the United States. 2) We are not winning now and we need a better strategy. 3) We need more troops on the ground and we need them sooner rather than later. That said, there was much in the speech that led many to question the president’s commitment to the mission and resolve to get the job done.

Heritage regional experts Lisa Curtis and Jim Phillips outlined an important list of serious concerns. Their main concern is that “President Obama has adopted a “McChrystal Light” strategy that embraces the new counterinsurgency plan announced by the Administration last March but fails to give [General Stanley] McChrystal all the troops that he deemed necessary to succeed with a low level of risk. It also remains to be seen whether the troop surge can be successful in such a short period of time.”

Of further concern is that Obama expects our NATO allies to do a good deal more. Heritage expert Sally McNamara concludes President Obama’s new strategy for the NATO ISAF mission is Continental Europe’s last chance to demonstrate that it is serious about victory in Afghanistan. Having endorsed General McChrystal’s counterinsurgency strategy, NATO’s European members must, at a minimum, provide an additional 10,000 troops to match President Obama’s 30,000 additional U.S. troops. Europe should also commit other resources, including civilian and military trainers, helicopters, and surveillance platforms. Unfortunately, Obama has not yet demonstrated he can induce the allies to deliver substantially more forces to the fight.

Finally, the most troubling aspect of the president’s decision was how long he took to make a decision and how convoluted the process appeared. The White House peddled the “inside” story of the President’s three month decision-making process on Afghanistan to both the New York Times and the LA Times. I suspect the White House intended to show how serious the president was in going about making his decision. But in truth a close reading shows something very different. “The articles reveal a president who paid no attention to the issue until he was asked to make a decision…and a White House that thinks war is an inanimate object, one that can be treated just like any other policy issue….if the articles are even close to being correct, how he made his decision was simply a horror show.”

The generals in the Pentagon think there is a fair chance the plan might work and that the President wont’ cut and run at the first sign of trouble. Let’s hope they’re right. Until then the White House gets an “I” for incomplete on Afghanistan.

FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor James Jay Carafano, Ph.D., is a leading expert in defense affaires, intelligence, military operations and strategy, and homeland security at the Heritage Foundation

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