At the summit in Lisbon, Portugal, Nov. 19-20, some North Atlantic Treaty Organization members are expected to propose a public timetable for withdrawing combat forces from Afghanistan by 2014 — the date by which Afghan President Hamid Karzai says he wants foreign troops out.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates reportedly has signaled his support for a similar timeline in recent comments in Australia. And this proposal matches the recommendation I made with Michael O’Hanlon in an August opinion piece in the San Jose Mercury News titled “Tell Us the Plan for Afghanistan, Mr. President.”
A public timetable is needed to eliminate ambiguity, we argue in that article, and to make clear that the United States is not rushing irresponsibly for the exits. It also is crucial to free up “human and financial” resources for increased development aid to Afghanistan, as well as robust counterterrorism and development efforts in Yemen, Somalia and other trouble spots.
But there is another reason Washington should embrace this timetable. Our international coalition is eroding. In my recent travels abroad, I found little public support in NATO countries for continuing the combat mission in Afghanistan.
Already, the Netherlands, Canada and France have announced plans to reduce their International Security Assistance Force combat commitments. While they have agreed to send a handful of army and police trainers, this trickle of support is not likely to turn the tide of violence now seeping into the north and west of Afghanistan — formerly peaceful areas.
It’s true that several NATO and non-NATO countries, like Georgia, have fewer troops in Afghanistan. I was in Georgia in August when the body of its first soldier killed in action was returned — the occasion for an impressive and somber ceremony. Georgia has offered thousands more troops, though Washington would bear the cost of supplying them.
Meanwhile, a leading U.S. diplomat is now making the rounds to shore up other foreign troop commitments.
The reality remains, however, that the overwhelming majority of our current and future fighting forces have American faces and use equipment made in the United States. Brave but exhausted U.S. troops have taken up some of the most dangerous security posts in the south of Afghanistan — exposing our men and women to the greatest harm while feeding the counternarrative that the United States is “occupying” Afghanistan.
This is unsustainable from a personnel and operations perspective.
We learned a critical lesson in Marja, the site of an early, well-publicized counterinsurgency offensive: The Taliban are good at vanishing and returning — a classic guerrilla tactic.
We’re essentially squeezing a balloon as the Haqqani network sets up closer than ever to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and makes repeated runs at our troops.
The Karzai government has acknowledged accepting buckets of money from Iran and continues to protect Afghan officials from corruption charges. Karzai often lashes out at U.S. officials — raising the question whether he wants to or can be the “willing partner” necessary to make our counterinsurgency effort successful.
The close to 100,000 U.S. forces now in Afghanistan cost $100 billion annually — a price tag that is larger than the budgets of the Department of Homeland Security or all 16 intelligence agencies.
If our goal in Afghanistan is to protect our country from future attacks by Al Qaeda — now a worldwide movement with headquarters in Pakistan, Yemen and the Maghreb — why are we maxing out our bet on Karzai?
A better option would be to endorse the Lisbon proposal while we, and our NATO allies, put more resources behind training Afghan National Security Forces. Here’s the good news: In little more than a year, ISAF has trained 37,000 Afghan police officers — more than the total trained in the previous seven years. The trained Afghan army has grown to 150,000 from fewer than 50,000.
The road ahead will surely be bumpy, as it continues to be in Iraq. But few question the wisdom of the military drawdown there.
President Barack Obama should seize the “deal” and use November to sell this policy to the lame-duck Congress. Hopefully, his December review of our strategy will show some progress — a comfort to troops and their families and to American taxpayers.
But one thing should be clear: The United States cannot afford to stand alone in Afghanistan.
Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) is chairwoman of the Intelligence Subcommittee of the House Committee on Homeland Security.