Obama backs away from big increase in Afghan forces

WSJ:

The Obama administration has soured on a call from its top commander to double the size of the Afghan police and army, reflecting the White House's continued skepticism about the Afghan government even as the U.S. prepares a surge of troops into the country, people familiar with the matter say.

At an address at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point on Tuesday, President Barack Obama is expected to announce that he will send roughly 30,000 American reinforcements to Afghanistan in addition to the 21,000 he deployed early in his administration. The escalation would bring total U.S. forces to some 100,000, the largest American troop deployment to Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion that toppled the Taliban government.

Mr. Obama may need Republicans to back his latest troop increase to make up for Democratic antiwar defections. The GOP, however, will question any decision that falls short of Gen. Stanley McChrystal's request for 40,000 more troops, said Rep. Tom Price (R., Ga.). In a phone interview from Afghanistan, where he and other lawmakers were visiting, Mr. Price was skeptical of what he feared would be half measures to try to please both parties. "If what you're trying to do is to please all people, than that might not make any sense," he said.

But the administration seems prepared to reject another of Gen. McChrystal's top priorities: his call to double the size of the Afghan police and army over the next few years.

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They may need to retrain many of the current force which shows a lack of discipline in some instances and cowardice and betrayal in others. But they are going to need the additional troops to create the force to space ratio needed to protect the people and cut off enemy movement. Providing fewer troops than those requested will likely lead to a continuation of the whack-a-mole strategy.