Barry
08-28-2009, 10:15 AM
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American opinions on Afghanistan
A war of necessity?
Aug 20th 2009 | WASHINGTON, DC
From The Economist print edition
Americans are giving Barack Obama the benefit of the doubt. For now
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</td></tr></tbody></table> <!--back-->THE orator-in-chief has not lost his touch. Addressing a crowd of military veterans on August 17th, Barack Obama thanked them for their service and vowed to give their successors in uniform everything they might need, while also cutting waste from the military budget. He reminded them that he was cancelling plans for a costly presidential helicopter that, among other things, would have let him cook a meal while under nuclear attack. If America is under nuclear attack, he assured them, “the last thing on my mind will be whipping up a snack”.
The main purpose of his speech, however, was to drum up support for the war in Afghanistan. “This is not a war of choice,” he said. “This is a war of necessity. Those who attacked America on 9/11 are plotting to do so again. If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which al-Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans. So this is not only a war worth fighting. This is fundamental to the defence of our people.”
<cf_floatingcontent></cf_floatingcontent> This echoes what Mr Obama said on the campaign trail last year. He made a distinction between the “dumb war” in Iraq and the good one in Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden plotted the toppling of the twin towers from Afghanistan. Overthrowing the Taliban regime that sheltered him was the right thing to do. If elected, Mr Obama promised to pull out of Iraq and concentrate on Afghanistan.
As president, he has kept his word, though not as quickly as he said he would. “We will remove all our troops from Iraq by the end of 2011,” he reiterated this week, “and for America, the Iraq war will end.” At the same time, he is sending more troops to Afghanistan. Their mission, he says, is to “disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaeda and its extremist allies”.
Like George Bush before him, Mr Obama reckons that the best way to sell a war to Americans is to mention al-Qaeda early and often. But also like Mr Bush, his war is more complicated than he makes it sound. American troops are not really fighting al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, because they are not there any more. The group’s surviving leaders have mostly fled to neighbouring Pakistan.
They could come back, perhaps, if America were to abandon Afghanistan and the Taliban took over again. Denying them a safe haven is obviously in America’s national interest. But there are several other wild places where al-Qaeda might also set up shop, such as Yemen, Somalia, Eritrea, Sudan, the Philippines or Uzbekistan. “We clearly cannot afford to wage protracted warfare with multiple brigades of American ground forces simply to deny al-Qaeda access to every possible safe haven. We would run out of brigades long before bin Laden ran out of prospective sanctuaries,” writes Stephen Biddle of the Council on Foreign Relations, a think-tank.
Mr Obama knows this, of course. His purpose in committing so many troops to Afghanistan is not merely to prevent al-Qaeda from returning but also to prevent the country from collapsing into chaos and destabilising its nuclear-armed neighbour, Pakistan. That is too complicated to put on a bumper sticker, but Mr Obama still has the political capital to attempt it.
That may sound surprising. Opinion polls in America show a growing pessimism about Afghanistan (see table). But such gloomy views are seldom offered unprompted. The anti-war movement has all but lapsed into silence. A Democratic pollster asked people at Netroots Nation, a big conference this month for left-wing activists, which issue they were spending most time campaigning about. The war in Afghanistan came last. Like other Americans, progressives are now much more worked up about domestic issues, such as whether they will have health insurance next year. As an electoral issue, Afghanistan is “about as inconsequential as it could be,” says Charlie Cook, a political analyst.
That means that Mr Obama has a relatively free hand in deciding how to deal with Afghanistan, at least for now. Since he did not start the war, no one accuses him of being a warmonger. Since he is prosecuting it seriously, hardly anyone accuses him of being weak-kneed. He has funds, forces and a strategy: to combine rigorous counter-insurgency with efforts to promote development and good governance. He has some time to make it work. But how much?
Voters may not be paying much attention to Afghanistan right now, but Congress is growing increasingly uneasy, says Jessica Mathews, the president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a think-tank. Lawmakers worry that the costs of America’s huge and open-ended commitment may outweigh its benefits. Counter-insurgency campaigns typically take many years, cost a fortune in blood and treasure and end in failure. The people who know most about Afghanistan are often the gloomiest. “Is Nation-Building Doomed?” asks Foreign Affairs. “Is It Worth It?” wonders the American Interest.
Mr Biddle, who wrote the article in the American Interest, thinks the war is worth fighting, but only barely. The costs will be high, the outcome uncertain. Mr Obama’s strategy promises more bloodshed in the short run in exchange for a chance of stability in the long term. That is hardly a combination that will appeal to voters, so it will be hard to sustain political support for it for long enough to make it work.
If the number of American deaths rises too fast, Americans will start to take notice of Afghanistan and Mr Obama’s job will become much harder. Mr Cook cautions that the body count would have to rise very sharply indeed to affect the mid-term congressional elections next year. But that is not impossible. The war “will not be quick”, warned Mr Obama this week, “nor easy”. Ms Mathews goes further: Afghanistan could be for Mr Obama what Iraq was for Mr Bush, or even what Vietnam was for Lyndon Johnson.
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American opinions on Afghanistan
A war of necessity?
Aug 20th 2009 | WASHINGTON, DC
From The Economist print edition
Americans are giving Barack Obama the benefit of the doubt. For now
<table align="right" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="4" width="208"><tbody><tr><td valign="top"><table align="right" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="2"><tbody><tr><td align="right" valign="top">AP</td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr><tr><td valign="bottom">https://www.economist.com/images/20090822/3409FB3.jpg</td></tr><tr><td valign="top">
</td></tr></tbody></table> <!--back-->THE orator-in-chief has not lost his touch. Addressing a crowd of military veterans on August 17th, Barack Obama thanked them for their service and vowed to give their successors in uniform everything they might need, while also cutting waste from the military budget. He reminded them that he was cancelling plans for a costly presidential helicopter that, among other things, would have let him cook a meal while under nuclear attack. If America is under nuclear attack, he assured them, “the last thing on my mind will be whipping up a snack”.
The main purpose of his speech, however, was to drum up support for the war in Afghanistan. “This is not a war of choice,” he said. “This is a war of necessity. Those who attacked America on 9/11 are plotting to do so again. If left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which al-Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans. So this is not only a war worth fighting. This is fundamental to the defence of our people.”
<cf_floatingcontent></cf_floatingcontent> This echoes what Mr Obama said on the campaign trail last year. He made a distinction between the “dumb war” in Iraq and the good one in Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden plotted the toppling of the twin towers from Afghanistan. Overthrowing the Taliban regime that sheltered him was the right thing to do. If elected, Mr Obama promised to pull out of Iraq and concentrate on Afghanistan.
As president, he has kept his word, though not as quickly as he said he would. “We will remove all our troops from Iraq by the end of 2011,” he reiterated this week, “and for America, the Iraq war will end.” At the same time, he is sending more troops to Afghanistan. Their mission, he says, is to “disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaeda and its extremist allies”.
Like George Bush before him, Mr Obama reckons that the best way to sell a war to Americans is to mention al-Qaeda early and often. But also like Mr Bush, his war is more complicated than he makes it sound. American troops are not really fighting al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, because they are not there any more. The group’s surviving leaders have mostly fled to neighbouring Pakistan.
They could come back, perhaps, if America were to abandon Afghanistan and the Taliban took over again. Denying them a safe haven is obviously in America’s national interest. But there are several other wild places where al-Qaeda might also set up shop, such as Yemen, Somalia, Eritrea, Sudan, the Philippines or Uzbekistan. “We clearly cannot afford to wage protracted warfare with multiple brigades of American ground forces simply to deny al-Qaeda access to every possible safe haven. We would run out of brigades long before bin Laden ran out of prospective sanctuaries,” writes Stephen Biddle of the Council on Foreign Relations, a think-tank.
Mr Obama knows this, of course. His purpose in committing so many troops to Afghanistan is not merely to prevent al-Qaeda from returning but also to prevent the country from collapsing into chaos and destabilising its nuclear-armed neighbour, Pakistan. That is too complicated to put on a bumper sticker, but Mr Obama still has the political capital to attempt it.
That may sound surprising. Opinion polls in America show a growing pessimism about Afghanistan (see table). But such gloomy views are seldom offered unprompted. The anti-war movement has all but lapsed into silence. A Democratic pollster asked people at Netroots Nation, a big conference this month for left-wing activists, which issue they were spending most time campaigning about. The war in Afghanistan came last. Like other Americans, progressives are now much more worked up about domestic issues, such as whether they will have health insurance next year. As an electoral issue, Afghanistan is “about as inconsequential as it could be,” says Charlie Cook, a political analyst.
That means that Mr Obama has a relatively free hand in deciding how to deal with Afghanistan, at least for now. Since he did not start the war, no one accuses him of being a warmonger. Since he is prosecuting it seriously, hardly anyone accuses him of being weak-kneed. He has funds, forces and a strategy: to combine rigorous counter-insurgency with efforts to promote development and good governance. He has some time to make it work. But how much?
Voters may not be paying much attention to Afghanistan right now, but Congress is growing increasingly uneasy, says Jessica Mathews, the president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a think-tank. Lawmakers worry that the costs of America’s huge and open-ended commitment may outweigh its benefits. Counter-insurgency campaigns typically take many years, cost a fortune in blood and treasure and end in failure. The people who know most about Afghanistan are often the gloomiest. “Is Nation-Building Doomed?” asks Foreign Affairs. “Is It Worth It?” wonders the American Interest.
Mr Biddle, who wrote the article in the American Interest, thinks the war is worth fighting, but only barely. The costs will be high, the outcome uncertain. Mr Obama’s strategy promises more bloodshed in the short run in exchange for a chance of stability in the long term. That is hardly a combination that will appeal to voters, so it will be hard to sustain political support for it for long enough to make it work.
If the number of American deaths rises too fast, Americans will start to take notice of Afghanistan and Mr Obama’s job will become much harder. Mr Cook cautions that the body count would have to rise very sharply indeed to affect the mid-term congressional elections next year. But that is not impossible. The war “will not be quick”, warned Mr Obama this week, “nor easy”. Ms Mathews goes further: Afghanistan could be for Mr Obama what Iraq was for Mr Bush, or even what Vietnam was for Lyndon Johnson.