The Obama administration is holding off major decisions that could put its military forces on a firmer war footing in Afghanistan even as doubts grow about whether the United States can win there.
Many military and diplomatic leaders have urged President Obama to send thousands more Marines, soldiers and airmen to try to reverse Afghanistan’s crumbling security situation.
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But White House spokesman Robert Gibbs has said no decision about adding troops is expected for “weeks and weeks,” following what he described as intensive evaluation. The troop decision will be a first indicator of whether Obama intends to double down in Afghanistan, becoming a wartime president in earnest.
Leading Democrats in Congress have signaled they do not support a troop increase now, and maybe not at all. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, had the unhappy task of telling the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday why the United States should stay the course and commit additional forces.
Sitting directly in front of him was the panel’s influential chairman, Sen. Carl Levin, a Democrat, who warned the White House last week not to push for a big troop increase. He wants the Pentagon to focus instead on quicker training for Afghan security forces.
Mullen has sounded increasingly alarmed about the growing technical capabilities of a resurgent Taliban and about the lackluster support among Afghans for the foreign-run enterprise that purports to protect them from a homegrown insurgent movement.
“Time is not on our side,” Mullen said earlier this month.
But Obama said this week that he is in no hurry to change the dynamic in Afghanistan.
“Over the next several months, what people need to do is to not expect a sudden announcement of some huge change in strategy,” Obama told CNBC television on Monday. He reiterated the main goal — targeting the al Qaeda terror network — but also mused about the perils of fighting a war without full backing at home.
“Afghanistan is not Vietnam, but the dangers of overreach and not having clear goals and not having strong support from the American people, those are all issues that I think about all the time,” Obama said.
Postponing whether to add more American forces and alter other aspects of military strategy could give the White House breathing room for other priorities, including a health care overhaul and a hard-fought defense budget package.
Leading congressional Republicans, who have become Obama’s strongest supporters for the Afghan effort, are fretting that he will punt.
Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham, and Joseph Lieberman, an independent, warned in a Wall Street Journal essay on Monday that muddling through is a recipe for disaster.
“More troops will not guarantee success in Afghanistan, but a failure to send them is a guarantee of failure,” they wrote.
Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, is widely expected to ask for more forces for what he describes as a nearly complete do-over of the Bush administration’s strategy to fight an increasingly unpopular war.
