Get out of Afghanistan, too
Share with others:
The American people and President Barack Obama are now face to face with the question of what to do about Afghanistan.
There is a strong argument that says that there was a time when Afghanistan was the right war for America to fight, but in 2009, with the United States having wrestled with opponents there halfheartedly for seven years and in Iraq wholeheartedly for six years -- if for hoked-up reasons -- it is now time to walk away from both wars, Iraq and Afghanistan, not just Iraq.
Mr. Obama has pledged to withdraw all U.S. forces from Iraq within 16 months of his inauguration, by May 2010. There is every reason for him to keep that election promise, which is precisely why many people voted for him.
The country needs the $10 billion a month the United States continues to spend in Iraq to cover the financial demands of efforts to save the economy. Our armed forces are close to exhaustion after multiple deployments to Iraq. It is a tragic fact that the suicide rate among America's soldiers mounted significantly in 2008 for the fourth straight year.
Iraqi provincial elections held Saturday in an atmosphere of relative peace and order were further evidence that it is time for Americans to come home. The timetable subscribed to by the Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki makes it clear that Iraq's government, even though it was elected under American occupation, also believes that it is time for U.S. forces to withdraw.
There is some audible weaseling going on in Washington as Mr. Obama is said to be courting the U.S. military so that the its leaders don't sabotage his plans in the Congress. He has expressed the intention of cutting their fat, rich budget as part of a "peace dividend" for the American people and to try to pay for his economic stimulus programs. It will be absolutely necessary that he not support some of the generals in their efforts to prolong the Iraq war to keep the gravy train running.
Cynics might have noticed the juxtaposition between the current political leadership vacuum in Republican Party and the smiling Gen. David H. Petraeus tossing the coin at Sunday's Super Bowl. Why exactly was he doing that?
During the presidential campaign Mr. Obama said he wanted to end the war in Iraq while beefing up the U.S. role in the more meritorious war in Afghanistan. It appears that he now intends to increase the number of U.S. forces in Afghanistan by 30,000 or so, to 78,000.
The idea was, presumably, that because Afghanistan had served as the platform for al-Qaida, hosted by the Taliban, to attack the United States on 9/11, America should see to it that the Taliban could not reestablish themselves in Afghanistan. After the 9/11 attack, the United States supported the Afghan Northern Alliance in forcing the Taliban and its al-Qaida friends out of power in Afghanistan. The United States then worked with the Afghans to put into place a new democratically elected government and president, Hamid Karzai, to nail the new situation in place and keep the Taliban and al-Qaida from coming back.
That didn't work awfully well. Some people would say that the reason it didn't was that the Bush administration quickly diverted its attention away from Afghanistan toward what it considered to be greener pastures in Iraq, leaving the job of stabilizing Afghanistan unfinished.
Others would say that, apart from the Bush administration's Iraq distraction, Afghanistan was not a promising piece of real estate to develop in any case and that the United States gave it in the end about as much attention as it deserved. That, in fact, is where I come out.
Mr. Karzai is suave, almost sympathetic, speaks well and may have a future as leader of Afghanistan apart from U.S. support. He is reportedly corrupt. His country exports 90 percent of the world's heroin. But what do we expect? Upper St. Clair East?
Mr. Karzai has just postponed Afghan elections to late August. I think he would fairly easily cut a power-sharing deal with the Taliban if the United States and NATO troops get out of the way.
Apart from the situation on the ground, the principal reason for the United States to complete its withdrawal from Iraq and not build up a substitute presence in Afghanistan is domestic -- U.S. national interests overall. Afghanistan ground up the British in the 19th century, and probably drove -- with our help -- the final nail into the coffin of a fading Soviet Union.
Then there is the perhaps starry-eyed idea that the 33 million Afghans have a right to determine their own future. One of the bizarre ideas of the Bush administration was that all countries should vote in free and fair elections to select their leaders. That is, unless they were Palestinians and chose Hamas rather Fatah, which is favored by the United States and Israel. The Lebanese also shouldn't vote for Hezbollah. The Somalis shouldn't settle in under an Islamic government. It was also fine for Venezuelans to overthrow Hugo Chavez in a coup d'etat, as opposed to employing constitutional means. There was democracy, and then there was democracy.
Anyway, there was modest hope among some of us after Nov. 4 that Mr. Obama would take seriously Americans' deep-seated belief that the people of other countries have a right to elect their own leaders, never mind what Washington thinks is best for them.
If Afghans continue to take the position that they do not like U.S. forces bombing their villages and killing their civilians, or preventing them from arriving at an agreement with the Taliban, that becomes one more reason -- apart from America's domestic situation -- for Mr. Obama not to beef up the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan, which potentially could take that war during his administration into its 11th year.
We can't afford it; there is no good reason to do it; it isn't consistent with our principles as a nation.
First Published February 4, 2009 12:00 am
