Les Gelb explains, endorses, Obama’s new Afghan strategy
Over at The Daily Beast, Foreign policy expert Lesley Gelb explains what he has learned from insiders about President Obama’s new Afghanistan strategy, and gives it the thumbs up:
President Barack Obama’s long-awaited Tuesday speech on Afghanistan offers lots more troops to the military and some promising rhetoric for war skeptics. He will authorize between 30,000 and 36,000 new U.S. troops, depending on prospective NATO contributions, and an additional 10,000 more in a year if necessary, according to administration sources. Obama will stress that these and other moves to strengthen the fight against the Taliban and al Qaeda should be seen as a boost to friendly Afghans and not as an open-ended American commitment. The boost will provide the time and the incentives for America’s Afghan allies to prepare themselves to assume primary responsibility for continuing the battle.
I would have preferred no more than about 15,000 troops, mainly trainers, a two- to three-year plan (not a fixed timetable) for Kabul to take the combat lead, and much more toughness toward our two-faced Pakistani “allies.” And the administration sources stress that the precise details and rhetoric of Obama’s plan won’t be set until the president gives his speech Tuesday night at West Point. But based on what they’ve told me, I believe that the Obama approach is reasonable, and about the most that can be expected, given the powerful conflicting pressures. The plan deserves the support of the American people.
The new strategy would place the U.S. deployment in Afghanistan at just over 100,000 troops, seriously resourcing that war really for the first time. Let’s hope Obama also announces a sharp reduction in our troop commitment to the wasteful, unnecessary war in Iraq, which is even now being reproved to have been illegitimate, and on the Bush administration’s table immediately after 9/11, via an inquiry in Britain.
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