|
|
|
|
|
 Email+  Share+
Obama’s plan for 30,000 extra troops faces tough opposition
29 November 2009
The US president’s war strategy in Afghanistan faces deep scepticism by some Democrats on Capitol Hill and by liberal voters who make up his political base, writes Niall Stanage in New York.
Wh e n Barack Obama addresses troops at the West Point military academy in upstate New York on Tuesday, it will be arguably the most important speech of his presidency so far.
The speech, due to begin about 8pm local time, will be televised live across the US, and will focus on Obama’s plans for the war in Afghanistan. The broad outlines of what the president will say are already apparent; in particular, he is expected to announce the addition of around 30,000 US troops to the 68,000 already deployed.
The US military commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, had asked Obama for 40,000 more troops, saying they were necessary to mount an effective counter-insurgency effort in a country that has a history of rebuffing foreign involvement.
Obama is also expected to stress that his commitment to the Afghan conflict is far from open-ended. His press secretary, Robert Gibbs, told reporters last week that " the president has repeatedly pushed and prodded, not simply for how are we going to get a certain number of troops in, but what has to be implemented ultimately to get them out’’.
Obama has indicated that Tuesday’s speech will be framed in similar terms.
‘‘After eight years [in Afghanistan] - some of those years in which we did not have, I think, either the resources or the strategy to get the job done - it is my intention to finish the job," he said last week.
It is unclear whether Obama will state a definitive time limit for a large-scale US military presence in Afghanistan. But even as the troop increase gets under way, he is expected to press for evidence of tangible progress, both from military planners such as McChrystal, who assert that the counterinsurgency strategy can work, and from the Afghan government, led by president Hamid Karzai, which has been widely accused of corruption and ineffectiveness. Afghanistan holds grave but unavoidable perils for Obama. On a practical level, an increase in troop levels appears to heighten the danger of the US sinking deeper into a foreign quagmire.
Pessimists and Obama critics highlight the potential parallels between his situation now and that of president Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s.
Johnson inherited the Vietnam War, but his escalation of it became the defining issue of his presidency, and led to his 1968 decision not to seek a second full term in the Oval Office.
On the other hand, if Obama had opted for a reduction in troop levels, or a much smaller increase than that sought by McChrystal, he would have faced complaints from the American right that he was being too soft in the international arena.
Such criticisms could be endured under current circumstances, but would be more penetrating if the US were struck by terrorists with any connection to Afghanistan in the future. As it is, Obama’s plan looks set to be met with deep scepticism by some Democrats on Capitol Hill and, to an even greater extent, by the liberal voters who make up his political base. Obama often professed support for the war in Afghanistan during last year’s presidential campaign, but many of his supporters may have ignored those comments because of his consistent opposition to the war in Iraq - which was the bigger issue back then.
As for Democratic powerbrokers in Washington, House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi, normally a key Obama ally, said there was ‘‘serious unrest’’ among her colleagues on the issue.
‘‘We need to know what the mission is, how this is further protecting the American people and is this the best way to do that, especially at a time when there’s such serious economic issues here at home," she said at a conference.
The final point - the cost of an expansion of the effort in Afghanistan - has particular resonance.
The rule of thumb is that the presence of each additional soldier costs $1 million per year. Congressional approval will have to be sought for funding the war effort, and it seems likely that a number of Democrats will desert Obama on the issue. Republicans are usually keen to present themselves as unambiguously supportive of troops in the field, but whether they will do so if it involves rallying to Obama’s side remains to be seen.
The US president also has to contend with reluctance on the part of Nato allies to ramp up their involvement in the conflict. While Britain has promised to add another 500 troops to its representation, French president Nicolas Sarkozy has stated that he will not ‘‘send a single soldier more’’.
British prime minister Gordon Brown said last week that he expected the Nato allies to increase their troop numbers by 5,000 in aggregate. Though significant, such an increase would be only half what the US initially sought.
|
|
|
