Obama's Afghan Strategy Remains Plagued by Problems

[tekisui]

Source: McClatchy

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama's decision to accept Gen. Stanley McChrystal's resignation and draft his superior, Gen. David Petraeus, to lead the war in Afghanistan eliminates a source of friction, but it doesn't address the problems plaguing U.S. policy there.

The change in command, Obama made clear Wednesday, is a change in personnel, not in a policy that's hampered by, among other things, the absence of a political strategy, rising U.S. casualties, growing ethnic tensions, endemic political corruption, the administration's July 2011 deadline for beginning a troop withdrawal and a stalled offensive in the country's second-largest city.

Petraeus, the head of the U.S. Central Command, is the main architect of the current strategy, which borrows some elements from the surge of additional U.S. troops he championed in Iraq, and he was largely responsible for putting McChrystal in charge of executing it.

If Petraeus's appointment has any immediate impact, it's likely to be on the prickly relationships among the strong personalities in charge of the war, including U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry, special envoy Richard Holbrooke and Vice President Joe Biden, and with the U.S.'s NATO allies and the Pakistanis.

"I think there will be a lot more of a 'let's work together' spirit with Petraeus in charge, said Prof. Joseph Collins, a professor at the National Defense University in Washington.

However, whatever comity Petraeus brings — with his stature as the counterinsurgency general who saved the war in Iraq and his political savvy — is likely to be tested by disagreements over policy and personnel, some of which McChrystal and his aides vented about in their exit interview with Rolling Stone magazine.

As McClatchy reported earlier this month, a number of U.S. and allied military, intelligence and diplomatic officials have been warning for months that the American strategy in Afghanistan is failing and complaining that no one at a high level in the Obama administration wants to hear their discouraging words.

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/06/23/96446/obamas-afghan-strategy-remains.html#ixzz0rncEYbmp

[sandnsea]

1. Gaaa, blame the diplomats

And then wonder why this country is always at war.

:argh:

[gateley]

2. Jonathan Alter was just on MSNBC saying Patraeus told Obama that Afghanistan

is not like Iraq, so maybe his taking over the helm will bring some good perspective to the situation. :shrug: