Afghan strategy can’t be delayed

President Obama wants to postpone a full-scale debate over Afghan policy until Congress passes health-care reform.

Unfortunately for Obama, Afghanistan won’t wait on health care. A debate on the direction of his Afghan policy is already brewing in Congress — especially over whether to send more troops.

Yet this debate is being conducted in a vacuum. True, the president has laid out his aim: to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al-Qaida and other extremists in Pakistan and Afghanistan and prevent their return to either country. The U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, has submitted his (still classified) assessment. Administration officials have briefed Congress on a list of 50 “metrics” by which to judge whether the policy is succeeding.

But the crucial element in the debate is missing: The president hasn’t resolved the dispute among advisers and within his party over his Afghan strategy. Until that strategy is set, the arguments over troop levels cannot be settled.

The strategy dispute basically revolves around three approaches. The minimalists want to use drones, missiles, and special-ops forces to go after the Afghan Taliban — while decreasing U.S. troop levels. This is the classic counterterrorism model.

Unworkable

Unfortunately, it won’t work. Gen. David Petraeus has pointed out that we tried launching cruise missiles at al-Qaida targets in Afghanistan in the 1990s and failed to eliminate the danger. Were we to quit Afghanistan, and the Taliban to retake control, we would lack the intelligence and infrastructure on the ground to find jihadi targets — or to effectively target terrorists inside Pakistan.

The second approach is one on which most everyone agrees — in principle: expanding and accelerating the training of Afghan security forces to replace NATO troops, while trying harder to woo some Taliban to stop fighting.

Sen. Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who is chairman of the Armed Services Committee, says these steps should precede any increase in U.S. troop numbers. This sequencing is likely to please many congressional Democrats.

Yet the Levin approach won’t work either — at least until the security situation eases in Afghanistan.

To understand why, look back at the U.S. effort to train Iraqi security forces. The numbers increased too quickly; when violence soared, the inexperienced Iraqi army nearly crumbled. It took an enormous U.S. effort to help Iraqi forces regain their footing.

In other words, Afghan forces are far from capable of bearing the brunt of the fighting. A decision on U.S. strategy and force levels cannot wait until they are fully trained.

Nor can that decision be postponed while pursuing a strategy of reconciliation with Taliban forces. Such reconciliation efforts are key, but U.S. commanders believe there is little chance of major breakthroughs while the Taliban think they are winning.

Buying time

Which brings us to the third approach: the classic counterinsurgency strategy favored by Petraeus and McChrystal. This one aims to protect and support parts of the Afghan population by clearing out Taliban and funneling in economic aid. The goal is to buy time to train Afghan troops, woo midlevel Taliban, and stabilize Pakistan.

This strategy would require more troops. But McChrystal has reportedly been told by the administration to delay a request for higher numbers. Any McChrystal testimony to Congress is on hold.

My guess is that McChrystal and his civilian counterparts would say U.S. military and civilian experts can work with local leaders and fund local aid projects, even if Kabul politics are unsettled. They would add that Afghans, who still overwhelmingly dislike the Taliban, according to polls, will judge U.S. forces less by their numbers than by their behavior, and what they deliver.

But McChrystal cannot get out ahead of the commander in chief.

X Rubin is a columnist and editorial-board member for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune.