I listened to yet another complaint that President Obama wants to leave up to 16,000 American troops in Afghanistan for the balance of this decade. For God's sake, people, this is a good thing!
Heck, the president isn't even doing as much as I wanted prior to the surges since right now we don't anticipate any direct combat role. I wanted that capability:
The end result in Afghanistan, if all goes well, will be a nominal national government that controls the capital region and reigns but does not rule local tribes and which actually helps the locals a bit rather than sucking resources from the locals, who in turn do not make trouble for the central government or allow their areas to be used by jihadis to plan attacks on the West. We press for reasonable economic opportunities, with bribes all around (I mean, foreign aid), to keep a fragile peace.
And we stick around this time, unlike after the Soviets left Afghanistan when we ignored the place, for a generation or two to see if we can move Afghanistan into the 19th century (hey, let's not get ahead of ourselves).
Hopefully our military surge recedes by the end of 2011 and we can get down to a single combat brigade plus air power that function as a fire brigade and a hammer for the central government should a local difficulty exceed Afghan military capabilities.
I suspect 16,000 is 9,000 too few. Lack of combat units account for much of that shortfall. But I will not complain that President Obama has risked our gains in Iraq for the sake of getting all our troops out of Iraq and then turn around and complain that President Obama will leave troops in Afghanistan for years after 2014.
I salute him for this, pray we can reverse course and make up for the Iraq mistake of leaving, and hope for the best in both places.
I would like to note in defense of my timeline from that January 2009 post that while we did indeed halt major operations by the end of 2011, drawing down troops took longer. But I was working on the assumption of a single surge to about 70,000 troops and did not anticipate the second surge ordered at the end of 2009 that sent our troop level to 100,000. Drawing down more troops takes more time, of course.
And while I was wrong about Predator strikes dwindling in Pakistan, they turned out to be our main way to establish the buffer zone in Pakistan that I did want. So I was mixed on those related issues.
Anyway, you go to war with the president you have and not the president you wish you had. You can regret that fact of life without assuming every war decision will be bad.
Those who support victory should at least be at least a little happy when efforts are made to win and hold the gains we made.
Just work the problems, people.
