Off track in Afghanistan
By Editorial Board, Published: September 22The Washington Post
“I THINK we are on track” in Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta cheerily told reporters on Friday. The Pentagon chief was celebrating the withdrawal of the last of the 33,000 “surge” troops sent to the country by President Obama in 2009, a pullout which — not at all by coincidence — was completed just weeks before the November election. Mr. Panetta was largely right in saying that the surge “accomplished its objectives” of breaking the momentum of the Taliban and buying time for the expansion and training of the Afghan army.
But after a week in which most joint operations between coalition and Afghan troops were suspended, U.S. strategy in Afghanistan is anything but “on track.” In fact, it may be more imperiled than at any other time in Mr. Obama’s presidency.
The halting of contacts below the battalion level between coalition and Afghan forces was ordered last Sunday, after four more American troops were shot and killed by Afghan police. These “green-on-blue” killings, which now account for 51 coalition fatalities this year, are being compared by senior U.S. officials and members of Congress to the Vietnam War’s Tet Offensive, because of the devastating effect on troop morale and the already weak domestic support for the war.
The parallel is hyperbolic — but the suspension of “partnering” will cripple NATO’s strategy if it is prolonged. Up to 80 percent of combat operations in recent months were joint operations between Western and Afghan forces, often at the company level. Without coalition support, many Afghan units may be unwilling or incapable of fighting. In the countryside, they will be tempted to surrender or strike truces with Taliban forces.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/off-track-in-afghanistan/2012/09/22/0b14cb0c-040d-11e2-91e7-2962c74e7738_story.html
