Iraq vs. Afghanistan
In a widely discussed op-ed in the New York Times this morning, Barack Obama laid out his plan for Iraq.
The major centerpiece of Obama’s policy in the War on Terror is that Iraq has been a “distraction” from the more important battle in Afghanistan, where we should be focusing our attention and resources. One of the main points of his op-ed is that withdrawing from Iraq would free up the necessary resources to “finish the job” to Afghanistan:
Ending the [Iraq] war is essential to meeting our broader strategic goals, starting in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the Taliban is resurgent and Al Qaeda has a safe haven. Iraq is not the central front in the war on terrorism, and it never has been. As Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently pointed out [me: link here], we won’t have sufficient resources to finish the job in Afghanistan until we reduce our commitment to Iraq.
As president, I would pursue a new strategy, and begin by providing at least two additional combat brigades to support our effort in Afghanistan. We need more troops, more helicopters, better intelligence-gathering and more nonmilitary assistance to accomplish the mission there. I would not hold our military, our resources and our foreign policy hostage to a misguided desire to maintain permanent bases in Iraq.
U.S. military officials have indeed said that at least three additional brigades (over 10,000 troops) would be needed to stabilize Afghanistan. Obama promises at least two additional brigades (7,000 troops) for Afghanistan as he withdraws U.S. forces from Iraq.
On the other hand, Christopher Hitchens, writing in Slate, criticizes the “either-or,” zero-sum rhetoric about Iraq and Afghanistan, pointing out several logical fallacies in such an argument and insisting that it’s foolish to claim that the United States can only fight in one country at a time.
Among his arguments:
The American presence in Afghanistan is not at all “unilateral”; it meets every liberal criterion of being formally underwritten and endorsed and armed and reinforced by our NATO and U.N. allies. Indeed, the commander of the anti-Taliban forces is usually not even an American. Yet it is in these circumstances that more American casualties—and not just American ones—are being experienced than are being suffered in Iraq. If this is so, the reason cannot simply be that our resources are being deployed elsewhere.
Many of the most successful drives against the Taliban have been conducted by American forces redeployed from Iraq, in particular from Anbar province. But these military victories are the result of counterinsurgent tactics and strategies that were learned in Iraq and that have been applied triumphantly in Afghanistan.
Hitchens points out that it’s rather simplistic to assume that the problem in Afghanistan is “simply a shortage of troops” — NATO commanders and the Afghan government believe otherwise: that the continued strength of al-Qaeda and the Taliban is due to the backing of Pakistani elites and the Pakistani military-industrial complex, which allows jihadists easy access between Pakistan and Afghanistan and a supply of weapons and recruits.
Hitchens also poses a theoretical question: What if, in the future, the U.S. was presented with a terrorist-sponsoring, WMD-armed rogue regime bent on fomenting instability, violence, and chaos in the region and around the world?
Would we be bound to say, in public and in advance, that the Western alliance couldn’t get around to confronting such a threat until it had Afghanistan well under control? This would be rather like the equivalent fallacy that nothing can be done in the region until there is a settlement of the Israel-Palestine dispute. Not only does this mean that every rogue in the region can reset his timeline until one of the world’s oldest and most intractable quarrels is settled, it also means that every rogue has an incentive to make certain that no such settlement can ever occur.
Which argument do you find more convincing?
Obama’s NYTimes editorial is already inoperative as in large measure it was based on assertions that Maliki was demanding a date certain U.S. withdrawal.
Maliki’s words were misreported by the media (ironically enough) based upon a printed misstatement originating from Maliki’s own office.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7504571.stm
If both NATO & Afghan commanders insist addt’l troops are needed… who’s qualified to dispute them?
Who is more convincing — Obama or Hitchens? Hands down for Hitch. Would relish a Hichens-Obama debate but merley fantasy as Obama would never dare risk it.
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