Afghanistan: Going for the Quick Fix
Jules Witcover

 

Afghanistan Troop Surge
(c) Paul Tong

When you consider that once Uncle Sam got into World War II it took less than four years to defeat the Nazis and Imperial Japan, it may seem reasonable to believe in President Obama's quick-fix plan for Afghanistan.

His battle scheme in committing 30,000 more American troops -- raising the total to 100,000 or more by next summer -- is designed to take the sting out of the Taliban in its regions of most strength and then start pulling out a year later.

But congressional hearings on the plan encountered considerable skepticism. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was obliged to concede a possible stretch-out of the withdrawal, telling the Senate Foreign Relations Committee it will probably take two or three years to complete it, and that "there are no deadlines" attached.

Thus, what already has been an eight-year U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan -- more than twice what it took to win World War II -- shapes up as a considerably longer effort than the one waged by the Greatest Generation, and with less promise of similarly complete success.

Some of the reasons are obvious. Once the United States was drawn into World War II by the Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor, American public opinion was wholeheartedly behind entering it, and total mobilization ensued. FDR put the country on a total war footing, demanding and getting great sacrifices on the home front as well as on the firing line.

Also, World War II was traditional warfare waged between massive uniformed armies over control of identifiable real estate. In a real sense, Germany and Japan in quest of territory eventually were obliged to defend their own. They ultimately had nowhere to hide and were defeated.

Contrast that history with what the United States faced for nearly eight years under the Bush administration and what Obama faces now -- an elusive, stateless guerrilla enemy with no territory it must defend. The Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan are not easily identified among the populace, and can melt into it at will.

Furthermore, the setting of a timetable for beginning to withdraw the 30,000 new American troops provides an additional incentive for the insurgents to wait out that withdrawal before reappearing later to resume the war.

As for the al-Qaida and other fundamentalist Islamist fanatics waging a bloody ideological fight against the United States and NATO forces, they can continue to do what they have already large done -- move out of Afghanistan into Pakistan and other Middle East countries either hospitable to them or unwilling or unable to extricate them from safe havens they readily find.

In Barack Obama's campaign for the presidency last year, he decried as nation-building in Iraq and Afghanistan Bush's declared intent to spread democracy through the Middle East. He said he would get back to finding and crushing al-Qaida. But his new strategy seems focused much more on salvaging the openly corrupt Karzai regime in Kabul than on targeting al-Qaida wherever it crops up.

It may be that Obama's quick-fix approach will work with a heavy dose of American manpower and firepower against the Taliban in its current areas of strength in Afghanistan, delivered swiftly enough to start his rough troop withdrawal in 18 months or so.

If not, however, the specter of the United States as a foreign occupying power is likely to cling and intensify in the whole region. And as American casualties inevitably grow in the intensified fighting, so will opposition at home to the whole military involvement.

Obama's assurances that it will not be open-ended give him little exit strategy from that very commitment. If the quick fix doesn't get his administration and the country out of Afghanistan by 2012, it could well wind up getting him out of the Oval Office.

But his determination not to surrender his own domestic agenda to the demands of a very costly foreign policy not of his making requires that the quick fix does succeed. He is rolling the dice on this one, against high odds.

 

 

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Afghanistan: Going for the Quick Fix | Jules Witcover

 

(c) 2009 Jules Witcover