What they’re saying about Obama’s Afghan surge

As widely expected, President Barack Obama announced last night that the United States would send a further 30,000 troops to Afghanistan, taking the total number of US forces deployed there to more than 100,000. He also set out an exit strategy, promising that he would begin troop withdrawals in July 2011.

The number of new forces is less than that requested by his commander in the field, Gen Stanley McChrystal, who asked for 40,000 to do the job. But Obama said European countries were aiming to send another 5,000, including the 500 from Britain announced by Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Monday.

Addressing hundreds of cadets at West Point military academy in a speech broadcast live, Obama said: "As commander-in-chief, I have determined that it is in our vital national interest to send an additional 30,000 US troops to Afghanistan. After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home. These are the resources that we need to seize the initiative, while building the Afghan capacity that can allow for a responsible transition of our forces out of Afghanistan.'

Obama took the chance to say that those who drew parallels with Vietnam were wrong. The war against the Taliban had wide international support, he claimed, and, referring back to 9/11, the US had been attacked by forces operating in Afghanistan and along the Pakistan border.

WHAT THEY ARE SAYING
Michael Tomasky, the Guardian: "Some experts in the intelligence and military fields say al-Qaeda doesn't need Afghanistan. If they really want to attack us again, they can do so from Waziristan, or even Hamburg, where several of the 9/11 hijackers lived for a time. Maybe they're right. But it's hard to imagine any responsible president of the United States would be comfortable taking that chance."Michael Brenner, the Huffington Post: "The sham Afghanistan strategic review is now revealed for the empty exercise it always was. Escalation was inescapable, for Obama's staunch promotion of a 'necessary war' precluded a serious reappraisal of stakes and risks. Reversing himself would have demanded the kind of courage that is wholly foreign to him. So we are left with an open-ended commitment to an unwinnable war. That outcome speaks volumes about the failings of Obama as a leader as much as his impaired judgment."

Rupert Cornwell, the Independent: "Vital parts of the Afghanistan equation are simply beyond Washington's control. Whatever performance benchmarks are laid down, there is no guarantee that President Karzai will be able to meet them. Officials talk about training an Afghan force of 400,000 to assume control of their country. But that process could be even more difficult than in Iraq. No less critical is the role of Pakistan. But the government of President Asif Ali Zardari is weak, even by Pakistani standards."

Bob Herbert, New York Times: "It would have been much more difficult for Mr Obama to look this troubled nation in the eye and explain why it is in our best interest to begin winding down the permanent state of warfare left to us by the Bush and Cheney regime. It would have taken real courage for the commander in chief to stop feeding our young troops into the relentless meat grinder of Afghanistan, to face up to the terrible toll the war is taking - on the troops themselves and in very insidious ways on the nation as a whole."

Giles Whittell, the Times: "General McChrystal has argued that the only way to deny al-Qaeda a safe haven in Afghanistan is to root out the entire Taliban insurgency. He will now have his chance. If he fails, American prestige will suffer immeasurably. Whatever happens, casualties on both sides will rise and a president elected partly for his opposition to one war will be defined by his escalation of another."
 
Lee Siegel, the Daily Beast: "Once again, Obama is using Bush's counter-example as a lever to sway the public. Yet to an even greater extent than his predecessor, Obama is proving himself an expert manipulator of public opinion, capitalising on the McChrystal and then the Eikenberry leaks to give the impression of anguished, many-sided deliberations over whether to increase troop levels in Afghanistan. The good cop/bad cop routine with Joe Biden, who dutifully argued against more troops, was breathtakingly cynical."

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