In Afghanistan, Trump settles on the least bad option
More than half a year into his presidency, Donald Trump has finally offered broad strokes for a way forward in Afghanistan. Most important, he took ownership of the nation’s longest war after a period of strategic drift.
The plan Trump offered in Monday’s prime-time speech was longer on aspirations than details. It gives Defense Secretary James Mattis buy-in from the Oval Office to add a few thousand more troops to the 9,800 uniformed Americans already there in an effort to boost battlefield performance of Afghanistan’s 180,000-member security force.
There should be no illusion that outright victory is in the offing, notwithstanding Trump’s conceit Monday night that “we will defeat them, and we will defeat them handily.” Right now, the conflict is a stalemate at best. The Taliban is resurgent, and the short-term strategy will be more about not losing than about winning.
Counterterrorism strikes can continue against terrorist hideouts; a strategic partnership is to be forged with India to solicit more economic development money for Afghanistan; and greater pressure is to be placed on Pakistan to finally force reduction of cross-border havens for Taliban chieftains. Trump, meanwhile, will lean on the Afghan government to fight corruption and implement reforms.
These are not new or even particularly creative ideas. Versions of them have been tried repeatedly without great success. The goal remains the same as always: to prevent Afghanistan from once again becoming a terrorist sanctuary from which the American homeland can be attacked the way it was on 9/11.
What is new is the commitment from Trump, a striking contrast from his “let’s get out of Afghanistan” tweets of a few years ago. Even just weeks ago, the Oval Office debate ranged from hiring mercenaries to firing field commanders to abandoning the war altogether. Trump even admitted during his speech that his “original instinct was to pull out.” In the end, the president appears to have settled on the best of a lot of bad options.
Now, as on many other issues, Trump is realizing the difference between being a kibitzer and being president. “All my life, I have heard that decisions are much different when you sit behind the desk in the Oval Office,” he said.
The issues are complex, the stakes high. The message to the world is clear. There’s no withdrawal and, usefully, no predetermined drawdown dates. The United States is committed to supporting the struggling Afghan government, so long at it makes progress.
That’s a crucial message to interlopers like Iran and Russia, who sensed a potential power vacuum as America vacillated. And the Taliban itself must now know that America, with a history of military support and commitment in Europe during the Cold War and for more than half a century on the Korean Peninsula, isn’t going away anytime soon.
This daunting and open-ended commitment, in fact, might well persist through the balance of Trump’s term in office and require the president to keep making the case to the American people that the sacrifices to come are worth the cost.