Over the past few months, the Obama administration has renewed its efforts
to strengthen its position in Afghanistan. In spite of the worsening
death toll from the ongoing war, the Obama administration has made a series
of new wartime commitments to ensure that the United States maintains a powerful
influence over the country well into the future.
In June 2016, President Obama made one of the most significant new commitments
when he authorized U.S. military forces to more directly engage the Taliban
in military operations. The new authorities allow “US forces to be more proactive
in supporting conventional Afghan forces as they take the fight to the Taliban,”
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest explained.
“And this means, in some cases, offering close air support, or it means, in
some cases, accompanying Afghan forces on the ground or in the air.”
In July 2016, President Obama then made another significant commitment. Reversing
his earlier pledge to reduce the US military presence to 5,500 troops by the
end of 2016, Obama announced
that “the United States will maintain approximately 8,400 troops in Afghanistan
into next year, through the end of my administration.” Obama decided to keep
a larger troop presence in Afghanistan because, as he noted, “the Afghan people
will need the partnership of the world – led by the United States –
for many years to come.”
With his latest moves, President Obama has ensured that the United States will
continue to play a dominant role in Afghanistan. Although he will have to hand
over responsibility for the war to his successor in the months ahead, Obama
has provided the next administration with the tools to maintain a powerful hold
over Afghanistan for the immediate future.
“The Taliban and their allies cannot wait us out,” Secretary of State John
Kerry insisted
when he addressed the issue on October 5, 2016. No matter what happens in the
upcoming US presidential election, he added, “I have absolutely no doubt the
United States is going to continue, there will be a renewed commitment.”
Rising Doubts
Of course, some observers express doubts about the extent of that commitment.
For example, former CIA official Robert L. Grenier noted before the Senate Committee
on Foreign Relations in early September 2016 that US officials had settled on
more modest objectives. “The US no longer aims to defeat the Taliban; instead
it hopes merely to keep the Kabul regime from being defeated,” Grenier stated.
In late September 2016, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph F.
Dunford, Jr. provided another reason to be doubtful. Addressing the fact that
the U.S.-backed Afghan military forces are struggling to defeat the Taliban,
Dunford stated
that the war had become “roughly a stalemate.”
Moreover, the Afghan military forces…