US Policy on Afghanistan: The Obama Administration's PR Offensive, "We Must, We Must Stay the Course"

For some time, we have been noting the US military's bureaucratic triumph over the President in the escalation of and persistence with the American campaign in Afghanistan, even beyond Barack Obama's nominal withdrawal date of July 2011.

Now the other shoe drops, courtesy of an article by Karen DeYoung in The Washington Post. This time it is the White House putting out the message: despite the growing doubts over the US intervention, despite the rising costs in money and lives, despite the complications of corruption, despite the inconclusive outcome of this week's Parliamentary elections, Washington will --- it must --- carry on.

(I'll hold out the possibility that this line is driven more by matters at home than abroad. The Administration could fear that "weakness" on Afghanistan will contribute to defeat of Democrats in November's Congressional elections. But, re-reading these press releases for the Government, I think that is at a best a secondary aim.)

Here are the killer paragraphs indicating that withdrawal and even a re-think of US strategy are being kicked out the window:

"Public opinion polls indicate a gradual loss of confidence in the war effort, but also a willingness to persevere that seems born less of optimism than the lack of a better idea. On Capitol Hill, where concern is growing over the human and economic cost, those advocating withdrawal --- including Wisconsin Democrat Sen. Russ Feingold's call for a strict timetable and California Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher's proposal to revive the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance of Afghan militias --- are in the minority.

While a broad bipartisan spectrum of lawmakers differs on the details, most appear willing to give the strategy more time, provided they are brought more fully into the administration's assessment process."

De Young's article:

Despite discouraging news from Afghanistan and growing doubts in Congress and among the American public, the Obama administration has concluded that its war strategy is sound and that a December review, once seen as a pivotal moment, is unlikely to yield any major changes.

This resolve arises amid a flurry of reports from outside experts and former officials who are convinced that the administration's path in Afghanistan is unsustainable and its objectives are unclear. Lawmakers from both parties are insisting that they be given a bigger say in assessing the war's trajectory.

The White House calculus is that the strategy retains enough public and political support to weather any near-term objections. Officials do not expect real pressure for progress and a more precise definition of goals to build until next year, with the approach of a July deadline President Obama has set for decisions on troop withdrawals and the beginning of the 2012 electoral season.

"The fundamentals are in the place where they should be," a senior administration official said. Any adjustments will be akin to "moving the rabbit ears around a little bit to get better reception," he said. "I don't think we'll be changing the channel come December."

Administration officials hope that acceptable, if not perfect, parliamentary elections in Afghanistan this weekend will buttress their case. Over the next three months, they say they expect measurable military progress in five areas outlined for Obama this week by Gen. David H. Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, according to several officials authorized to discuss the situation on the condition of anonymity.

Those areas include the elimination of Taliban sanctuaries outside the city of Kandahar and continued targeting of senior and mid-level insurgent leaders by U.S. Special Operations forces, an increase in the disappointing number of Taliban fighters brought into a government reintegration scheme, the development of newly authorized local defense forces, and improvement in the capabilities of Afghanistan's national security forces.

The State Department has its own metrics, which include counting the number of development projects and newly installed local officials, but "that doesn't tell their effectiveness," another official said.

When Obama announced his strategy and additional troop deployments last December, the administration told Congress it would take what Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates called a "hard look" at whether it was working at the one-year mark. Gates later said officials would be seeking "enough evidence to demonstrate, if you will, the proof of concept . . . that we're headed in the right direction."

Beneath the administration's outward calm, nerves have been frayed this summer by the slow pace of military operations and paucity of uncontested gains against Taliban forces. Reports of Afghan government corruption have been unrelenting, as has the climb in U.S. casualties. Troop deaths have more than doubled since Obama took office - more than 330 this year by early September - along with the size of the U.S. force.

At a Monday meeting with his senior national security advisers, Obama displayed "particularly acute impatience" at "really astounding" casualty figures that are far higher than what was anticipated at the beginning of the year, the senior official said.

The near-collapse of the country's leading bank and President Hamid Karzai's attempts to stop U.S.-backed prosecutions of allegedly corrupt senior Afghan officials have overshadowed what the administration sees as signs of progress, the official said. Not only have the controversies opened the door to congressional efforts to condition funding, "you can't fit them into a story that explains to the American people why we're on a path to fulfill our goals," the senior official said.

At Monday's White House meeting, officials debated whether efforts to stop corruption and graft at every level of Afghan governance have become counterproductive to the overall U.S. mission. In what would amount to a substantive but undeclared, change in strategy, the administration has begun to delineate which elements of the anti-corruption campaign are "mission critical," and which are simply too hard.

The issue, the senior official said, is determining "what amount and what type of corruption feeds the Taliban and undercuts our capacity and any Afghan government's capacity to govern" versus what is culturally "endemic" in Afghan society. Senior officials, including Obama, have publicly insisted the United States is not trying to create "Shangri-la" or "Switzerland" in Afghanistan. The goal, they say, is a stable society that will not permit al-Qaeda to reestablish its presence there.

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