The New York Times reports today that senior officials within the Obama administration are pressing for an accelerated withdrawal of forces from Afghanistan. The “rationale” for that pressure is supposedly the success of America’s efforts against al Qaeda and the fact that “the counterterrorism campaign, which was favored by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. in 2009, has outperformed the more troop-intensive counterinsurgency campaign pushed by Mr. Gates, Gen. David H. Petraeus and other top military planners.”

This rationale—or rationalization?—is specious. It demonstrates a profound misunderstanding of the relationship between our efforts in Afghanistan and our successes in Pakistan, as well as of the inseparability of effective “counter-terrorism” operations from the counter-insurgency strategy President Obama announced in December 2009. Simply put, if the U.S. abandons the mission in Afghanistan before achieving the objectives President Obama announced at West Point, the “counter-terrorism” operations in Pakistan will also fail.