Obama's War of Choice


Written by S.G. Jilanee • Cover Stories • January 2010

Finding himself between a rock and a hard place, Obama has chosen the latter. President Obama was faced with opposition from Karl Eikenberry and many members of his own party to any troops surge in Afghanistan. A senior State Department officer, Timothy Hoh had even resigned over the kind of strategy being followed there.

Eikenberry is a retired lieutenant general who had served in Afghanistan twice since 2002. His last assignment was as commander of the combined forces. And since January 2009, he has been US ambassador to Afghanistan.

Timothy Hoh is an ex-marine. He had served in Iraq before he donned civilian dress and joined the State Department. Until his resignation last September 10, he was a senior civilian officer posted at Kabul in Afghanistan.

"I feel that our strategies in Afghanistan are not pursing goals that are worthy of sacrificing our young men and women or spending the billions we're doing there," Hoh said in his resignation letter. "I believe that the people we are fighting there are fighting us because we are occupying them - not for any ideological reasons, not because of any links to al Qaeda, not because of any fundamental hatred toward the West. The only reason they're fighting us is because we are occupying them."

But, accepting their views against his handpicked General MacChrystal's request for additional troops would have exposed the president to the charge from the Republicans and his other detractors of being a wimp. His opponents, Dick Cheney included, accused him of "dithering," when he took an unduly long time deliberating over the issue and examining its nuts and bolts. That fear was his "rock.' Besides, in an unguarded moment, perhaps to upstage his predecessor, he had declared that the Afghanistan war is a war of "choice."

Hoisted, thus, with his own petard, Obama announced his decision to send 30,000 troops, after full 92 days since McChrystal asked for at least 40,000. That was the "hard place" he was driven to choose. The venue, appropriately, was West Point and the cadets his immediate audience, though he spoke at the same time to the American people.

They troops will start arriving next month, Obama declared. If this was intended as a sop to the hawks, he offered a lollipop to the doves as well, saying the drawdown would begin 18 months later in July 2011. The hawks were unhappy, because at the end of the day what he offered was short of McChrystal's minimum demand by a full 10,000. McCain was particularly uneasy with the declaration of a withdrawal date. But White House reassured the critics telling them that fixing a withdrawal date did not mean that all troops would be brought home at once. The withdrawal would be gradual, with no date when the last man will depart, they said.

This clarification should also assuage the fears of Pakistan and Karzai governments that a sudden pullout might lead to a triumphant return of the dreaded Taliban and a repeat of Saigon after the US quit. Some, however, see the announcement as a goad for President Karzai to do more; end corruption and take control of defense and policing by his own people, because, "America has no interest in fighting an endless war in Afghanistan."

Of the roughly 110,000 foreign troops now in Afghanistan, 68,000 are American. Britain has 9,000 troops and has pledged another 500 in the coming months. Germany has 4,365, followed by France's 3,095 soldiers. Canada, Italy and the Netherlands also have between 2,000 and 3,000 troops.

Obama said he was "confident" that allies would join in the escalation, "What's at stake is the security of our allies, and the common security of the world." But, the Dutch parliament has demanded the withdrawal of the country's 2,160 troops by August, and the Canadians have said they want out by early 2011. And anti-war sentiment is so strong in the UK that Lance Corporal Joe Glenton, 27, of the Royal Logistic Corps preferred court martial and a 10 year sentence for disobedience, to going to the war in Afghanistan.

European public opinion dismisses the prospect of military victory in Afghanistan as European polls show that voters want their governments to bring the troops home rather than send more into battle.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy have already put off any firm decision on new troops until after a United Nations conference for Afghanistan on Jan. 28 in London. The two countries have at the same time signaled their determination to focus any increased involvement on training police and other local security forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan, rather than combat.

Germany is also writhing under the recent shock of the NATO strike at the call of the German commander in Afghanistan that killed about a 100 people including many civilians. Two top military officials have since been fired and the former defense minister Franz Josef Jung, who had already been demoted to labor minister, resigned under pressure. At home, some Democrats on Capitol Hill are talking of levying a war tax to highlight their opposition to the surge. Others are suggesting they would mount an effort to cut off funding for the additional troops.

Cost: Peter Orszag, head of the Office of Management and Budget puts the cost at $1 million per soldier per year ($30 billion annually for 30,000 more troops. Besides, "every US soldier in Afghanistan requires 22 gallons of fuel a day - and the cost of a gallon of gas bought and shipped to the deepest corners of Afghanistan averages $45." A study by the international accounting firm Deloitte puts the cost of fuel for the additional troops at nearly $1,000 a day per soldier - more than $350,000 per year. This will be in addition to the expenditure on the 68,000 soldiers that are already there and to the $150 billion that the war has cost the US so far.

No less serious will be the security problem in transporting additional fuel. It will require more fuel convoys exposed to enemy attacks.

Goal: "We are going to dismantle and degrade their capabilities and ultimately dismantle and destroy their networks," said the president. "It is my intention to finish the job." But how, can he? He termed al Qaeda as the cancer. But that "cancer" has already expanded to Yemen and Somalia. In Afghanistan Obama's National Security Adviser, Gen. James Jones, put the number at "fewer than a hundred" in CNN interview last October.

Also at a Senate hearing, when Sen. John Kerry asked the former CIA Pakistan station chief, Bob Grenier, "So in terms of ‘in Afghanistan, they have been disrupted and dismantled and defeated. They're not in Afghanistan, correct?" Grenier replied: "That's true."

So the new "finishing the job" strategy is going to focus more on Pakistan where Al Qaeda is believed to thrive. Increasing drone attacks and expanding their range to Baluchistan is already on the cards as the New York Times revealed. But any such aggressive policy will have serious ramifications on US-Pakistan relations and would add rather than reducing Obama's problems.

The hard place Obama has chosen may, therefore, prove harder than he has bargained for.