(HOST) President Barack Obama is struggling with the most important national security decision of his presidency so far- whether to send more American troops to Afghanistan. This morning, veteran ABC News diplomatic correspondent and VPR commentator Barrie Dunsmore looks at Obama’s quandary.
(DUNSMORE) The commanders in the field say that if they had more troops they could win this war. But the government the United States is propping up is corrupt and incompetent, and the enemy cannot be overwhelmed with America’s sophisticated weaponry.
These are the echoes of the Vietnam War which have resonance in today’s debate about future American strategy in Afghanistan. President Hamid Karsai and his corrupt administration evidently tried to steal the latest presidential election, which has thrown his legitimacy into serious question. The insurgents, led by the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban do not stand and fight, but use terror tactics to infiltrate and intimidate the civilian population. And the Taliban appear to be winning.
The American Commander, General Stanley Mc Chrystal, has gone very public, to the considerable distress of the White House, in declaring that if he doesn’t get up to another 40,000 troops, "mission failure" was likely. He is supported by the Pentagon’s top brass. Faced with similar circumstances in 1965, President Lyndon Johnson gave his generals what they wanted. He dramatically increased the number of troops in Vietnam, thereby escalating a war that would then last another decade – and of course, doom his presidency.
But despite their many similarities, Vietnam and Afghanistan are not completely analogous. The fundamental difference is that Vietnam never directly threatened the American homeland. Afghanistan, as a haven for al Qaeda, already has. The big question facing the president is: how to prevent Afghanistan from once again becoming a direct threat to the U.S. homeland.
Frankly, I am opposed to a major escalation of the Afghanistan War – but I am not for a substantial pull-out at this time, either. I believe that what the United States does there matters – especially because what it does in Afghanistan will have a direct impact on Pakistan – and it is Pakistan, if we are not careful, that could become a major threat to this country.
Pakistan is believed to have as many as 100 nuclear warheads. The current civilian government is not entirely stable. Elements of Pakistan’s intelligence service, which created the Taliban, may still secretly support them. And there are senior officers in Pakistan’s military who remain obsessed by their historic conflict with India and thus oppose their army’s recent operations against what they see is a lesser problem of terrorists on their lawless and porous border with Afghanistan. But the fact is the so-called Pakistani Taliban and al Qaeda have been escalating terrorist attacks within Pakistan and are definitely a serious threat to Pakistan’s security and stability.
So, whatever President Obama decides about troop numbers, he must not be seen as giving up on this region and conceding Afghanistan to the Taliban. That would not only discourage further Pakistani cooperation with America in dealing with al Qaeda – it could further de-stabilize the Afghan border and Pakistan itself. The bottom line remains – a nuclear armed Pakistan under the control of Islamic fanatics is the world’s worst nightmare.