How committed is President Obama to keeping a major number of US troops in Afghanistan for many years to come? Not very, if his reluctance to lay the political groundwork needed to enact the escalation request coming from his military commanders is any indicator.
Instead, Obama is doing less-than-nothing to build durable support for his Afghanistan strategy.
The President's silence -- coupled with continued setbacks in Afghanistan -- has had a predictable impact: The new ABC/Washington Post poll shows public support for the war upside down for the first time (51 percent now say it's not worth fighting), and 45 percent want to see our troop levels decreased (up from 29 percent just before Obama's inauguration). Most telling: The brunt of opposition to the war comes from the President's own base -- the very Americans who would be most persuaded by hearing from him on the issue frequently and directly.
So what will Obama do? As CBS News reports (via Mike Allen's Playbook), military advisers this Fall will recommend the White House send another 15,000 to 45,000 (!) troops to supplement the 68,000 that will be on the ground by the end of the year. But let's be honest: Considering the political dissension already brewing inside Obama's base, it's unlikely he will send 45,000 more troops to Afghanistan -- let alone win the funding from Congress.
Alternatively, the President could do what Richard Haas laid out in today's New York Times:
"[T]here are alternatives to current American policy. One would reduce our troops' ground-combat operations and emphasize drone attacks on terrorists, the training of Afghan police officers and soldiers, development aid and diplomacy to fracture the Taliban.
"A more radical alternative would withdraw all United States military forces from Afghanistan and center on regional and global counterterrorism efforts and homeland security initiatives to protect ourselves from threats that might emanate from Afghanistan."
A complete withdrawal from Afghanistan is hard to imagine, especially after President Obama's initial commitment, but a major draw-down framed as a strategic shift is foreseeable. In fact, Obama left the door open to such a dramatic pivot in his most recent remarks, saying that "Going forward, we will constantly adapt our tactics... And at every step of the way, we will assess our efforts to defeat al Qaeda and its extremist allies...."
Assuming Obama and Congressional Democrats opt not to send in the additional troops the military believes are needed to secure the country and defeat the Taliban, then casualties are likely to continue to mount with limited progress. How tragic it would be if 18 months and hundreds of casualties from now, the President belatedly changes course and withdraws, having failed to build and cement the necessary public support when he could for the effort.
Follow Alex Conant on Twitter: www.twitter.com/AlexConant
