Trump’s Afghan Choice He may repeat Obama’s Iraq blunder by overruling his generals.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/trumps-afghan-choice-1501801181
The Russia election probe aside, President Trump has so far avoided any major foreign-policy mistakes. But he will commit an Obama -sized blunder if he overrules the advice of his generals who want a modest surge of forces and a new strategy in Afghanistan.
Mr. Trump had by all accounts agreed weeks ago to the Pentagon’s request for an additional 3,000-5,000 troops plus more aggressive use of air power and other assets. But he’s having second thoughts as he indulges his isolationist instincts fanned by aide Stephen Bannon. Mr. Trump’s decision will determine whether he’ll repeat Mr. Obama’s catastrophic 2011 withdrawal from Iraq, and it will echo among allies and adversaries for the rest of his Presidency.
Mr. Trump—like all Americans—is understandably frustrated that the Afghan war still isn’t won after 16 years and 2,400 American lives lost. Barack Obama undermined his own 2009 surge of troops with a fixed exit date, and then tried to time the departure of all U.S. troops to his own White House exit.
This told the Taliban to wait the U.S. out, and the insurgents have since regained much ground they lost during the surge. Mr. Obama recognized his mistake enough to keep 8,400 troops in the country, but he limited their duties mainly to training and pursuing Islamic State enclaves. We’re told there are only about a dozen F-16s in the country, and the Afghan military lacks crucial close-air support during Taliban engagements.
Mr. Trump has given his field commanders more freedom, and they can now pursue Taliban fighters. But the Afghan forces are still losing ground in much of the country and need more support. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis’s plan would inject U.S. advisers with Afghan battalions to assist on the battlefield.
The U.S. could also deploy some Apache attack helicopters to blunt Taliban advances, and close-air support and air evacuation assistance would give Afghan forces a dose of confidence. They’re certainly willing to fight, having lost 2,531 soldiers through May 8 this year alone, with 4,238 wounded. The U.S. has lost 10 soldiers in Afghanistan this year.
Mr. Mattis also needs a strategy for Pakistan, which provides a refuge for the Taliban and lethal Haqqani network. This may require cross-border U.S. military raids, ideally with Pakistani cooperation, but alone if necessary. Mr. Trump could help by naming an ambassador to Islamabad, and perhaps a special envoy like former General David Petraeus to all of the main regional players.
Mr. Trump is fond of saying around the White House that Afghanistan is “the graveyard of empires,” which might be relevant if the U.S. were running an empire. The U.S. is there at the request of a legitimate elected government and a population that doesn’t like the Taliban. A Trump troop mini-surge would be a crucial political signal to the Afghan government and regional players that we aren’t bugging out.
The U.S. won’t be there forever, but it does need to be there long enough to prevent the country from reverting to a jihadist safe haven. The Taliban are joined by Islamic State and al Qaeda, and if we were to pull out they might depose the government in Kabul.
As a political and strategic matter, Mr. Trump would own that result as Mr. Obama did the rise of Islamic State. The pictures of Taliban marching into Kandahar and Kabul and tearing down the schools for women that the U.S. has done so much to support wouldn’t be pretty. The panicked evacuations and mass killings wouldn’t help the image Mr. Trump wants to project of a strong leader.
The strangest analysis of late is that Mr. Obama’s 2011 withdrawal from Iraq was ultimately a success because it forced Iraqis to unite to repel Islamic State. Yes, and smokers tend to stop after they get lung cancer.
But what a fearsome price Iraq and the U.S. have paid for that abdication. Iraq lost a quarter of the country, tens of thousands were killed, and major cities were turned to rubble. The U.S. had to re-engage militarily and devote four years breaking Islamic State’s caliphate while even its temporary success inspired jihadist attacks around the world, including the U.S.
Mr. Trump may chafe that he has to spend more money and political capital on Afghanistan, but U.S. Presidents can’t withdraw from national commitments without consequences. North Korea, Russia, China and Iran are sizing up the President in these early months to determine how much military or territorial expansion they can get away with.
Walking away from Afghanistan, or overruling his generals to satisfy the isolationism of his political base, would show that he’s more like Barack Obama than he wants to admit.
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