Since the beginning of a full-scale offensive to retake Helmand and Kandahar provinces in 2010, U.S. troops and their allies have driven the Taliban out of most of their southern strongholds. Enemy-initiated attacks are 20 percent lower this year than last, and 36 of the last 45 weeks have seen fewer insurgent attacks than the corresponding week a year ago. Despite a few high-profile attacks, Kabul remains fairly safe—as do the north and west. The exception to this good news story is in the east, where enemy attacks have been up, but then that’s why military commanders have been keen to shift resources there.
Yes, as I've written we really are making progress on the ground. Progress in improving Afghan security forces is slower but real, as well. Admittedly, we have a harder time in Afghanistan than in Iraq, but there was a time when critics of the Iraq campaign despaired of the Iraqis getting good enough. Iraqis got good enough and Afghans can, too.
Boot also writes:
Unfortunately, rather than regularly explaining and defending our troop presence in Afghanistan, President Obama focuses most of his public comments on his desire to withdraw. Last week the New York Times printed an article, widely seen as a trial balloon, saying that the administration is considering pulling out another 20,000 troops or more by June 2013. That would be a major mistake; the troop cuts that have already been announced—decreasing the force from 100,000 troops last year to 90,000 today and 68,000 by September—imperil commanders’ ability to stabilize the situation. ...
But President Obama’s hesitancy and irresolution should not be an excuse for Republicans to abandon the war effort. They should continue to pressure the president to respect the advice of his commanders in the field, who want to keep 68,000 troops through 2014, with a substantial residual presence after that.
Yes, the president's failure to rally the nation to the war he pledged was his focus as the "real war" on terrorism has been a terrible disappointment for me. Republicans have stood by this war despite the fact that it is being waged by a president they despise. Bush never had that advantage in Iraq, yet even he--tongue-tied as he is portrayed--managed to make speeches in defense of the war effort and maintained sufficient support to win that fight on the ground despite the claims of war opponents that it was a quagmire we could never win.
And the military thinks we need 68,000 for a few more years to win. I have long thought that we could win with 68,000, although I guessed the success could come faster with them, after a couple years of pounding the enemy. My major mistake was thinking we could tackle the problems in the south and east at the same time. Instead, we focused on the south in 2010 and 2011 after an additional surge, and our military hopes to turn to the east this year. Add a couple more years for that effort and you get to 2014 before our projected 68,000 level can recede with some assurances that the local security forces we train can prevail over the weakened Taliban.
Most importantly, Boot asks what is our alternative to winning this fight? We went into Afghanistan to destroy al Qaeda's sanctuary and to destroy the Taliban regime that hosted and allied with al Qaeda. How do we prevent the Taliban from retaking Afghanistan (or parts of it) and allowing al Qaeda to reconstitute? Are we to rely on distant firepower that lacks the intelligence provided by friendly forces combing the ground day in and day out? And no, having those new unmanned aerial vehicles doesn't change the need for good information to guide the smart bombs. Extremely accurate bombs aimed at the wrong targets won't magically hit the right targets that we have no information about.
If not in Afghanistan, just where and how do we fight the "real war" against jihadi terrorism?
UPDATE: Secretary of Defense Panetta, at least, is working the problem in his visit to Afghanistan. Perhaps we've reached the nadir of panic:
There's no question that we've all been tested by recent events here and that I think all of us express concern about those events and the need to do everything we can to make sure that those events don't happen again. But we are also very unified in our focus in achieving the mission here. We haven't lost sight of our goal to ensure that al-Qaida and their terrorist allies do not find a safe haven here and that that goal -- in order to accomplish that goal, we need an Afghanistan that can secure and govern itself.
In the discussions that I just completed with President Karzai and also with the other Afghan leaders, we really did focus on the strategy for the future and what needs to be accomplished as we move towards the end of 2014 and then, beyond 2014, the missions that we need to focus on to maintain an enduring presence. We focused on the future. We focused on the kind of enduring partnership that the United States and Afghanistan need to have not only now but in the years ahead.
These discussions really convince me that ISAF and the Afghan government are indeed responding positively to recent challenges. I commended President Karzai, I commended Minister Wardak, Minister Mohammadi in the way that they've responded to these recent events, in maintaining order and in being able to assert the kind of control that is so important to the future security of this country.
And I think everyone also agreed that we need to stick to the strategy that we've laid out for the future.
This is good to read. Although I still await an explanation for our sudden drop in casualties in February and March. If we've just been lucky--that's great. If we are simply at a lower level of activity as we prepare for a more intense effort in Regional Command East, that's understandable, too.
But if it isn't either of those, how does our relative inactivity fit with staying the course on our strategy, which was supposed to include an offensive in Regional Command East this year?
And if we aren't remaining on the offensive, how do we reach our goal of ensuring that al Qaeda and their terrorist allies do not find a safe haven in Afghanistan (again)?
UPDATE: The two leading Republicans will give the president no cover to bug out.
Work the problem. Don't be the problem.
