Obama considers failed whack-o-mole strategy for Anghanistan

NY Times:

President Obama is exploring alternatives to a major troop increase in Afghanistan, including a plan advocated by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to scale back American forces and focus more on rooting out Al Qaeda there and in Pakistan, officials said Tuesday.

The options under review are part of what administration officials described as a wholesale reconsideration of a strategy the president announced with fanfare just six months ago. Two new intelligence reports are being conducted to evaluate Afghanistan and Pakistan, one official said.

The sweeping reassessment has been prompted by deteriorating conditions on the ground, the messy and still unsettled outcome of the Afghan elections and a dire report by Mr. Obama’s new commander, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal. Aides said the president wanted to examine whether the strategy he unveiled in March was still the best approach and whether it could work with the extra combat forces General McChrystal wants.

In looking at other options, aides said Mr. Obama might ultimately just be testing assumptions — and assuring liberals in his own party that he was not rushing into a further expansion of the war — before ultimately agreeing to the anticipated troop request from General McChrystal. But the review suggests the president is having second thoughts about how deeply to engage in an intractable eight-year conflict that is not going well.

Though Mr. Obama says he believes that a stable Afghanistan is central to the security of the United States, some advisers said he was also wary of becoming trapped in an overseas quagmire. Some Pentagon officials say they worry that he is having what they called “buyer’s remorse” after ordering an extra 21,000 troops there within weeks of taking office before even settling on a strategy.

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Among the alternatives being presented to Mr. Obama is Mr. Biden’s suggestion to revamp the strategy altogether. Instead of increasing troops, officials said Mr. Biden had proposed scaling back the overall American military presence. Rather than trying to protect the Afghan population from the Taliban, American forces would concentrate on strikes against Qaeda cells, primarily in Pakistan, using special forces, Predator missile attacks and other surgical tactics.

The Americans would accelerate training of Afghan forces and provide support as they took the lead against the Taliban. But the emphasis would shift to Pakistan. Mr. Biden has often said that the United States spends something like $30 in Afghanistan for every $1 in Pakistan, even though in his view the main threat to American national security interests is in Pakistan.

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That must be the same Biden who thought it was "smart" to break Iraq into three countries. He may be one of the more overrated foreign policy "geniuses" in history.

I think what has happened is that the Obama teamed selected McChrystal with his back ground in special forces thinking he would come up with a plan like Biden et al wanted. But Gen. McChrystal crossed them up by going with the classic counterinsurgency strategy.

What Biden is proposing is the classic strategy for defeat when dealing with insurgents. It will lead to a longer and bloodier war for all sides and our troops will be put in the position of buying the same real estate over and over again.

It is ironic that the same Democrats who criticized the Bush administration for not listening ot Gen. Shinseki on the number of troops needed are now looking to ignore the experts by McChrystal and Petraeus because it does not fit their political agenda. They are dead wrong on this and it will result in more dead Americans.