There is an old rule in politics that says if everyone is against you, then you are probably doing the right thing. On Dec. 1, President Obama made the correct decision to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. Though it is a tragedy that so many more men and women in uniform will be put in harm's way, they are needed to combat a resurgent Taliban. The fledgling Afghan army needs all the military support it can get if it is to increase its numbers to the 134,000 under the current plan. A more politically dangerous move, however, is Obama's rhetorical decision to set a timetable for the withdrawal of American forces. Any set date allows the Taliban to bide its time, waiting for the Americans to leave before springing up again in even more destructive attacks against the government. It remains to be seen whether or not this troop withdrawal date of July 2011 is anything more than a political ploy to appease liberal constituents.
President Obama's decision has been met with criticism from the left and the right, but most criticism ironically comes from Obama's own Democratic Party. Liberal anti-war activists protested Obama's speech at West Point and Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) stated that "the president was very persuasive, but I'm looking for facts … I'm looking for how we can live with this thing. We've got plenty of problems here in the United States."
Republicans, in contrast, supported the troop increase but not the timetable. "I just don't want the July 2011 statement to be seen by our enemy…that we have somehow locked ourselves into leaving," argued Sen. Lindsey Graham, (R-SC). The supposedly set timetable partially fulfills one of Obama's campaign promises to begin troop withdrawal as soon as possible. Therefore, it can be seen more as a move of political appeasement than anything else. It is unlikely that, if July 2011 comes around and significant military and infrastructural improvement remains to be done, the President would actually go through with the withdrawal plan.
What is particularly unknown is who President Obama is trying to appease with this timetable - the Taliban militia or impatient anti-war voters who expected one thing from Obama and got the exact other.
The 2007 Iraq Surge that greatly improved conditions within Iraq is a sore topic for Democrats who opposed the plan at the time, and refuse to acknowledge victory in the same way that Bush refused to acknowledge defeat. The Iraq surge approximately involved the same number of additional troops - 30,000 - as the current one, and was a great success.
Within two years, violence in Iraq was down drastically and it is safe to say that the Iraq we face now is much better than the Iraq we faced in the chaos of car bombs and kidnappings from 2004-2006. The same may be true for Afghanistan, which, though it is a completely different culture with a distinct cultural heritage, does not face the brutal high-body count and daily attacks of pre-surge Iraq.
Conservatives have very little to dislike about Obama's decision. The speech bore close similarity to ones that former president George W. Bush made defending the continued involvement in Iraq. Obama reminded Americans about the vicious attack of 9/11 and of an enemy that seeks to destroy us even now. We cannot give up on Afghanistan. To do so would be to adopt the twisted logic used by those who were against the Iraq surge in 2007. Obama is strong enough to change his mind when presented with the facts. It is time that the Democrats acknowledge the success of the Iraq surge, for the sake of the men and women who fought and died in it, and adopt a similar policy in Afghanistan that will leave the Afghan people with nothing less than a safe, secure and free nation.
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