Next week the president will address the nation in his annual “State of the Union Address,” the major theme of his address will center on the U.S. economy, healthcare reform, and the vast inequality of incomes in this country.
It will be interesting to see how much emphasis the president will place on the situation in Afghanistan. This year, American forces are supposed to be withdrawn from Afghanistan, but the president would like to keep a residual force to help train Afghan security forces and conduct counter-terrorism operations.
Right now the Pentagon has proposed to the president that 10,000 combat troops remain in Afghanistan, or none remain at all.
“The proposal is 10,000 or basically nothing, a pullout,” said one official, who was involved in the briefing but spoke on the condition of anonymity on what was discussed.
Intelligence agencies and the state Department back the Pentagon proposal, but have met skepticism from the White House National Security Council, to include Vice President Joseph Biden, on why is it 100,000 troops or zero, but nothing in between.
The president is weighing his options so as not to replicate the situation in Iraq, which has been exploited by al-Qaeda by U.S. troop withdrawal and the continued chaos formulated in Syria.
The situation is made even harder by the fact the president does not have a great relationship with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Karzai has consistently refrained from signing a bilateral security agreement specifying conditions for continued presence of U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
The president and his administration have to articulate what the strategy is, going forward in this volatile region. The U.S. has strategic interests in Afghanistan and South Asia, as the leadership of al-Qaeda’s is still located along the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
A civil war in Afghanistan will allow the Taliban to reconstitute itself back in the country, and allow other terror organizations that have situated themselves along the porous Afghanistan-Pakistan border to establish itself in the country.
Without a clear strategic vision articulated by the administration would increase instability; increasing the likelihood of Russia, Iran, Pakistan, China, and India exerting their own conglomeration of proxy forces fighting and fermenting chaos in Afghanistan; therefore destabilizing the Afghan government.
The final aspect to this debate, a precipitous withdraw by the United States would be seen that the U.S. is not reliable and further enhance the image the U.S. is withdrawing again like it did after the Russians left Afghanistan in 1979. Other countries would fill the vacuum left by the U.S. and we would pay a price for this.
It has been months since the president has last many any significant mention of the Afghanistan. In former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates book, ”Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War” he comments the president never believed in his own strategy in Afghanistan and he only mentioned Afghanistan when it revolved around troop increases or withdrawals.
This issues are too big and the consequences too great to play politics with Afghanistan. A strategic vision is needed on what is our way forward, but not one that is geared around the mid-term elections or 2016 presidential election.
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