Last December President Obama announced his new Afghan counterinsurgency strategy to great fanfare when he stated that he would be sending an additional 30,000 U.S. forces into Afghanistan. The greatest sticking point which has hampered U.S. efforts ever since which appealed to his liberal base, was U.S. forces would be begin drawing down in July 2011.
Military officials, led by General David. Petraeus, have slowly been building a case which minimizes the planned withdrawal. Various military experts in counterinsurgency have been letting administration officials know that they will need time to complete their work.
Counterinsurgency is a slow and laborious undertaking and can't be placed on a time schedule to appease the political whims of partisan politics in Washington. The president has to understand once he set that arbitrary date he made it hard for the U.S. to accomplish it's mission.
The Afghans remember history, and they remember the U.S. abandoned them after the Russians pulled out in 1989, leaving them to the violent chaos that ensued after which brought the violent Taliban into power.
Now they are seeing the same thing replicate itself all over again. Why would they support us now knowing we are leaving in less than a year. The date set by the president has given a propaganda coup to the Taliban who only have to wait us out.
The success of the surge in Iraq was based on no withdrawal and that the U.S. would see it through. Ironically the president was against the Iraq surge and against Gen. Petraeus counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq. Now he called upon the General to implement his same surge in Afghanistan.
Ironic how fortunes turn!
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