President Obama’s announcement tonight he is ending the U.S. troop surge that helped stabilize the war in Afghanistan was a fulfillment of his 2009 promise the U.S. offensive would end this summer. At the time, Obama was rightly praised for his decision to re-commit to fighting the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and his refusal to allow that country to drift back into the control of the Islamists. But by sending the enemy a message America could be waited out, the president also gave them hope. Today, that hope is being renewed. The withdrawal of the surge forces against the advice of our military commanders may wind up breathing new life into the Taliban cause. If, as a result of this decision the Taliban regains the ground it lost since the surge, then we will look back at this speech as a victory for America’s enemies, not a political coup for Obama.
The speech was crafted as a way of positioning the president in such a way as to make him appear both as a successful war leader as well as an opponent of that war. Though Obama made a case for continued engagement in the Middle East, the president seems to be more interested in declaring a victory over the Taliban and al-Qaeda despite the fact the war is nowhere near over, let alone won. Obama presented the choice for America through his usual rhetorical device of proposing a middle way between two extreme points of view. But a phased withdrawal is a smart idea only if you think of it as the only choice other than an unlimited commitment and an all-out bug out.
The president is correct our goal in the Middle East is a fight for self-determination and not empire, but if Obama allows the Taliban to recoup their losses then this will be just empty talk. The notion the killing of Osama bin Laden, which the president continued to mention at every opportunity, allows us to let al-Qaeda’s Taliban allies off the hook in this manner is the sort of thinking that would render meaningless everything our armed forces have achieved in the last two years.
The problem here is for all of his willingness to speak of a U.S. commitment to the fight against al-Qaeda, the president is playing more to domestic sentiment than to America’s strategic responsibilities. His speech concluded with what can only be considered a piece of 2012 campaign rhetoric when he spoke of nation building at home replacing nation building abroad. That may be what many Americans want to hear after 10 long years of fighting in Afghanistan and a deepening economic crisis. But none of this should be mistaken for either courage or the vision a nation still at war needs.
