President Obama to announce troop increase in Afghanistan

November 24, 9:37 AMLA Foreign Policy ExaminerLuke Johnson

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US troops in Afghanistan, Logar Province. (AP-Dario Lopez-Mills)

President Obama has made a decision on troop levels Afghanistan and will announce it on Monday evening.

The troop increase will not begin on Tuesday, nor will it be over by Wednesday--McClatchy reported yesterday that the decision will be an increase of 34,000 troops over nine months, beginning in March. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will also try to convince other NATO countries to contribute more troops after the President announces the decision. There are already 68,000 US troops in Afghanistan already.

It is, of course, too early to judge this decision since the President has not announced it yet. Still, the inclusion of "off-ramps," or benchmarks, raises questions. McClatchy reported:

The administration's plan contains "off-ramps," points starting next June at which Obama could decide to continue the flow of troops, halt the deployments and adopt a more limited strategy or "begin looking very quickly at exiting" the country, depending on political and military progress, one defense official said.
"We have to start showing progress within six months on the political side or military side or that's it," the U.S. defense official said...

 

As McClatchy reported last month, the Obama administration has been quietly working with U.S. allies and Afghan officials on an "Afghanistan Compact," a package of political reforms and anti-corruption measures that it hopes will boost popular support for Karzai and erase the doubts about his legitimacy raised by his fraud-tainted re-election.

While the specific benchmarks of the compact remain unclear, cracking down on corruption, drug trafficking and instituting "reforms" seem to be ambitious, if not quixotic, goals for the Karzai government in six months' time. As one U.S. defense official commented, "it isn't worth the paper it's written on." Will the Administration really pull the plug then if the Karzai government does not meet these benchmarks? Or will they say good enough and continue? Another way of putting the question is, is our threat to leave credible? Those questions will be crucial when the President announces the decision on December 1.