Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Trump stresses a path to ‘win’
President says fight in Afghanistan must continue
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump declared Monday night the United States must continue fighting in Afghanistan to avoid the “predictable and unacceptable” results of a rapid withdrawal from the country where the U.S. has been at war for 16 years.
In a prime-time address to the nation, Trump said his “original instinct was to pull out,” alluding to his long-expressed view before becoming president that Afghanistan was an unsolvable quagmire requiring a fast U.S. withdrawal.
Since taking office, Trump said, he’d determined that approach could create a vacuum that terrorists including al-Qaida and the Islamic State could “instantly fill.”
“I concluded that the security threats we face in Afghanistan and the broader region are immense,” Trump said.
Though his speech was billed as an announcement of his updated Afghanistan policy, Trump offered few specifics about what it would entail.
He did not provide a number of additional troops that will be sent to the war, though U.S. officials said ahead of the speech they expect him to go along with a Pentagon recommendation for nearly 4,000 new troops.
“We will not talk about numbers of troops or our plans for further military activities,” Trump said. “Conditions on the ground, not arbitrary timetables, will guide our strategy from now on.”
There are roughly 8,400 American forces in Afghanistan now. At its peak, the U.S. had roughly 100,000 forces there, under the Obama administration in 2010-2011.
Trump said the American people are “weary of war without victory.”
“I share the America people’s frustration,” Trump said at the Army’s Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall, in Arlington, Va., across the Potomac River from the White House. Still, he insisted that “in the end, we will win.”
With his address to the nation, Trump is in the awkward position of taking ownership of a conflict he has long criticized. Like presidents before him, he has shifted from a candidate emphasizing domestic issues and rebuilding at home to confront the tough realities of war and peace through the lens of a commander in chief in close counsel with military officials.
In his case, the move signals the influence not just of Pentagon commanders but of the retired generals whom Trump has brought into the White House — H.R. McMaster as national security adviser and John Kelly as chief of staff. And it reflects the waning influence of the nationalist faction that had been led by White House strategist Steve Bannon, who was ousted Friday but had advocated for a retreat from longstanding alliances and expensive commitments overseas.
Any calls for more troops and money will almost certainly run into resistance from an unusual but consistently strong coalition of liberal Democrats and libertarian-leaning Republicans who reject a muscular military presence.
On Monday, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky was among deficit hawks reminding the president of the opposition from the Republican far-right.
Massie wrote on Twitter, “In addition to $ trillion+ war, we’ve spent $113 billion rebuilding Afghan … that’s 2x our own $50 billion annual federal highway spending!”
Lawmakers may have difficulty approving more funding for the new strategy if the administration sends a supplemental spending request to Capitol Hill this fall. Senators, in particular, have made it clear they will require a more fulsome strategy before committing to more troops. Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the Republican chairman of the Armed Services Committee, had outlined his own plan and senators were preparing to debate it when they return from their August recess next month.
Congress is also under pressure to revisit its nearly 16-year-old authorization for the war, approved after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Proponents have increasing momentum amid concerns of broader military entanglements abroad — concerns that candidate Trump had stoked. Trump’s move almost certainly will revive the effort.
Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia on Monday said that both the Obama and Trump administrations had failed to outline a clear strategy for the region.
Kaine, on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Monday, cited an early failure “by everybody, to say ‘OK, what’s the continuing rationale for being here?’ ” He added, “What we need to do is make sure Afghanistan isn’t a breeding ground for things that can come back and hurt us.”
After lawmakers hear Trump’s plans, “we’re going to be kicking the tires about it when we come back in September,” Kaine said.