No decision on deploying more troops to Afghanistan...yet

9 Nov 2009: U.S. special operations soldier pays his final respects to a comrade killed on Saturday in Afghanistan's Farah province. AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo

President Obama has delayed a decision to deploy more troops to Afghanistan until after he returns to U.S. soil from a trip to Asia that he embarked upon today.

According to The New York Times, as Mr. Obama convened his war council for 2 hours 20 minutes on Wednesday, he suggested that he was not satisfied with his options.

Officials said that in the meeting, the eighth in the Situation Room on Afghanistan and Pakistan in the last two months, Mr. Obama pressed for clarifications on a series of questions: Where are the off-ramps for the military? What is the exit strategy? When will Americans and their allies hand responsibility to the Afghanistan government? Can the Afghan government improve its credibility?

The Times reported that a few hours before the war council met on Wednesday, Mr. Obama slowly walked through the rain-soaked grass at Arlington National Cemetery and visited Section 60, where 577 troops from Iraq and Afghanistan are buried. He stopped by the grave of Spec. Ross McGinnis, a Medal of Honor recipient who was killed nearly three years ago when a grenade was thrown into his vehicle in Iraq. The President also spoke with relatives of other troops who were on hand when he passed by.

President Obama is weighing some very different opinions as to how the war in Afghanistan should proceed. At one extreme is the strategy put forward by the Gen Stanley McChrystal, the US NATO commander in Afghanistan, to increase troop numbers by 40,000 for a counterinsurgency drive. Sen. John McCain said last week that he is angry the president has delayed his Afghanistan decision and three weeks ago former VP Dick Cheney accused Obama of "dithering." 

The other extreme comes from the progressive base of the democratic party, several opinion polls that show that the American people want an end to the war, and others like the Ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry.

According to MSNBC, Eickenberry sent a cable to the White House yesterday strongly objecting to emerging plans to send tens of thousands of additional forces to the country, and has sent multiple classified cables to Washington over the past week that question the wisdom of adding forces when the Afghan political situation is unstable and uncertain.

Eikenberry is not just another envoy. Before resigning his Army commission to take the job as U.S. ambassador in Kabul earlier this year, Gen. Eickenberry served two tours of duty in Afghanistan, the second as head of the Combined Forces Command. After his second Afghan tour, Eikenberry was Chairman of the NATO Joint Military Committee. He is a West Point graduate with advanced degrees from Harvard and Stanford.

President Obama reportedly has rejected, or at least delayed a decision, on all options presented to him at what had been expected to be the last of those sessions Wednesday. All of those options involve troop increases ranging from deploying 20,000 to 40,000 additional troops and all of them include a massive increase in government spending on the wars.

All we can hope for is that this is a signal that our Commander in Chief will not be bullied by the Pentagon into making impulsive decisions, that he will carefully weigh the consequences of any decision regarding the deployment of troops, listen to all of his advisors, and listen to the American people. Our troops have been in Afghanistan for over 8 years. A few more days of careful decision-making as to where this war will go in the next few years is perfectly acceptable. Most Americans feel that way. An exit strategy, or at least clear, attainable military objectives in Afghanistan are what are needed at this point, not just a short-sighted escalation of the war.