Although military and civilian officials tell THE WEEKLY STANDARD that the July 2011 deadline has made it harder to get Afghans to cooperate with the U.S. and our allies, Gates believes there may be a payoff when the deadline passes.
“The Taliban were messaging that we were leaving in July of ‘11. It seemed to me that if we were willing to be patient we could do some judo on them. Because if the Taliban were all persuaded we were going to be gone by the end of July ‘11, they were going to be in for a really big surprise in August, September, October, November and so on, because we are still going to have a huge number of forces there.”
I mentioned this aspect of the "deadline" several months ago (as I similarly mentioned about Iraq when the 2006 Congressional elections may have given the enemy there unjustified hope that we'd leave right before we surged) when it seemed like the enemy was counting on only having to hold out under our attacks until July 2011:
We aren't leaving in July 2011 and the enemy is failing to understand the nuance of that "deadline." Yes, it was probably a mistake to announce that non-deadline deadline, but there may be a silver lining as long as domestic forces committed to retreating can be contained. We can exploit this enemy perception of our pending departure even if that perception makes it more difficult for our forces over the next year. If the enemy feels that they will get relief next summer, and if instead we intensify our efforts next summer and fall, the reality that the enemy doesn't really know how long they have to endure our pressure will likely batter the morale of all but the most committed jihadi. And even the committed jihadis will suffer doubt and fear under those circumstances.
Have patience, people. We held on in Iraq until the enemy broke and ran. We can do the same in Afghanistan.
