The Afghanistan Decision: Doomed If You Do, Doomed If You Don't

A few days ago, President Barack Obama announced at West Point that he would send an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan in an effort to win the war over the next three years. By then he’s counting on most U.S. troops to have left Afghanistan, but it all depends on what the situation looks like at the time. As pundits have noted, the President now owns the war; if everything goes wrong, or brilliantly, Obama is responsible for it. This is also his chance to actually earn the Nobel Peace Prize, an award that will come his way too soon in Oslo on December 10th. Obama’s speech was not exactly popular. Republicans lauded his decision to send more troops (Sarah Palin laughably suggested that Obama had “heeded” her advice), but complained about the time it took for him to make up his mind; Senator John McCain also pointed out that setting a withdrawal date was unwise. Liberals generally decried the decision to send more troops and once again asked the President why the hell American soldiers were there in the first place.

There was nothing wrong really with Obama’s speech. He’s caught between a rock and a hard place and this was the best decision he could come up with after consulting with his advisers and General Stanley McChrystal, who’s in charge of the Afghanistan adventure. The President is still true to his beliefs that he needs to do what’s best for his country and whatever other nations that happen to be affected at the time of a specific decision, regardless of what Republicans (who are rarely bothered with what’s best for anyone other than fellow conservatives) and people on the left feel is right. Time Magazine’s Joe Klein intelligently discusses the pro and con arguments to sending more troops here. Personally, I feel slightly depressed over Obama’s decision but it has more to do with the fact that the war isn’t going well. I have no doubt that Obama is making the right decision because no one has been able to present a compelling, convincing counter-argument. Some on the left don’t seem to understand that creating stable democracies out of both Afghanistan and Pakistan is absolutely the most important security commitment today. If international troops are withdrawn, if the Taliban are allowed to seize power again in Afghanistan, and Pakistan becomes a genuinely failed state, then the world as a whole will face dire consequences that extends far beyond whether or not Afghan girls should be allowed an education or not.

You can’t bring peace and stability with bombs, but you can use military might to punish and control those who wish to kill and oppress their women and children. Sending more troops and thereby escalating a war is horrible in the way that more people will die. When President George W. Bush decided to add more troops to his senseless Iraq War in 2007, I was highly skeptical. But the surge turned out to be effective. Let’s hope that this one does the job as well – and ends the war as soon as possible.

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