Biden's bumbling Afghan 'strategy'

NY Times:

A few hours after getting off a plane from America’s war zones, Joseph R. Biden Jr. slipped into a chair, shook off his jet lag and reflected on what he had seen. The situation in Iraq, he said, was much improved. In Pakistan, he said he saw encouraging signs.

Then he came to Afghanistan and shook his head.

“It has deteriorated significantly,” he said. “It’s going to be a very heavy lift.”

That was six days before Mr. Biden was sworn in as vice president in January, and just after he had met with President-elect Barack Obama, who had sent him on the fact-finding mission to figure out just what the new administration was inheriting. Mr. Biden’s assessment was even grimmer during his private meeting with Mr. Obama, according to officials.

From the moment they took office, Mr. Biden has been Mr. Obama’s in-house pessimist on Afghanistan, the strongest voice against further escalation of American forces there and the leading doubter of the president’s own strategy. It was a role that may have been lonely at first, but has attracted more company inside the White House as Mr. Obama rethinks the strategy he unveiled just seven months ago.

For Mr. Biden, a longtime senator who prided himself on his experience in foreign relations, the role represents an evolution in his own thinking, a shift from his days as a liberal hawk advocating for American involvement in Afghanistan. Month by month, year by year, the story of Mr. Biden’s disenchantment with the Afghan government, and by extension with the engagement there, mirrors America’s slow but steady turn against the war, as measured in public opinion polls.

The percentage of Americans who approve of the way Mr. Obama has dealt with Afghanistan dropped to 44 percent in late September from 56 percent in April, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll.

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That kind of polling can be very misleading, because the disapproval numbers include people like myself who want to see a surge of forces that can defeat the Taliban.

Biden has a history of being wrong on most of the big foreign policy questions including the surge in Iraq which he opposed, but is now seeing the benefits of. But, he is wiling to ignore those facts and come up with a strategy that will make the Afghan war longer and bloodier. By failing to provide additional troops, he is leaving us on a whack-a-mole strategy that leave too few troops having to take the same real estate more over and over as the enemy moves its troops around.

What we clearly need is additional troops that can cut off the enemy's movement to contact and retreat from contact. They can also get better intelligence on enemy movement by protecting the people. The additional troops will also dishearten the enemy by showing a commitment to victory. The failure to send additional troops will give hope to the enemy. You win wars by making the enemy feel his cause is hopeless.