When former President George W. Bush launched Operation Enduring Freedom Oct. 7, 2001, no one at the Pentagon imagined the war would go on 16 years later. Less than a month after Sept. 11, Bush took the war to Afghanistan to track down Osama bin Laden. Mobilizing 10,000 U.S. troops took time, leaving Bin Laden a window to escape his training camps before the Taliban was toppled in Kabul Oct.9, 2001. Bush went to war against the Taliban for harboring Bin Laden. With 2,271 deaths, 19,850 wounded and over $150 billion spent on Afghanstan, Trump complained the U.S. had little to show for the 16-year-old war. Speaking tonight in a primetime address, Trump looks to follow his generals’ advice, especially U.S. Afghan Commander Gen. John Nicholson, to add another 4,500 U.S. troops to end the Taliban’s recent advances with support from Pakistan.
Since toppled Oct. 9, 2001, the Taliban has fought a guerrilla war against the U.S. backed Afghan government led by 68-year-old Ashraf Ghani whose Kabul government controls only 264 of Afghan’s 400 government districts, losing 5% in 2017. Trump’s decision to add 4,000 more U.S. troops would put the total ground forces to 12,400, not enough to neutralize the ongoing Taliban insurgency that controls some 40% of Afghan territory. Friendly to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria [ISIS], the Taliban lends safe have to terrorist groups, just like it did when it harbored Bin Laden for two years before Sept. 11. After criticizing former President Barack Obama for pulling U.S. troops from Iraq Dec. 15, 2011, Trump’s in no position to create the same power vacuum in Afghanistan. Back in 2013, Trump favored pulling the plug on Afghanistan, signaling a change of heart today.
Former GOP nominee Ohio Gov. John Kasich opposes any troop surge in Afghanistan, advocating withdrawing U.S. forces. “I want our people to be able to come home,” Kasich told CNN Aug. 20. While Kasich knows little about foreign policy, he mirrors the views of many left-leaning elected officials, looking for less U.S. involvement in foreign wars. Once the U.S. evicted the Taliban in 2001, it was forced to prop up a failed state after years of war. Installing 59-year-old U.S.-backed Hamid Karzai Oct. 9, 2001, the U.S. together with NATO and 24 coalition partners, tried to neutralize a well-organized Taliban insurgency. Long after Bin Laden escaped from Tora Bora in Dec. 2011 through the Khyber Pass to the mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan, the U.S. has been mired battling the ultra-conservative Taliban, once imposing strict Sharia law in Afghanistan.
Trump’s decision tonight to add up to 4,000 more U.S. troops shows the U.S. caught between a-rock-and-a-hard place in Afghanistan. With Ghani’s government forces losing more ground to the Taliban, it’s just a matter of time before the U.S.-backed government falls without more support. Defense Secretary Gen. James Mattis hopes that adding 4,000 more U.S. troops will help slow the Taliban advance, now controlling some 40% of Afghanistan. Sen. John McCain (R-Az.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, offered his own Afghan plan of increasing U.S. ground and air forces. McCain wants to see “measurable progress,” especially with government corruption, the rule of law and financial transparency. Whether adding 4,000 more troops can accomplish that is anyone’s guess. Trump can’t go against his generals who want to surge troops in Afghanistan.
U.S. Afghan Commander John Nicholoson wants to aid the Afghan army, currently struggling to stay ahead of the Taliban. “We are with out and will stay with you,” Nicholson told the Afghan army, knowing that, after 16 years, U.S. patience has worn thin. Speaking from the Army’s Joint Base Meyer-Henderson Hall in Arlington, Va, tonight, Trump hopes to shift attention away for the Charlottesville debacle, that saw the president blaming all sides for the Aug. 6 violence. Elected politicians denounced Trump for not coming down hard enough on White Supremacist groups in Charlottesville. When Trump gave his Aug. 15 press conference at Trump Tower denouncing both sides for violence, elected officials found his words unacceptable. Whether true or not, the public wanted Trump to denounce White supremacist groups as intolerable.
Stepping up on an urgent foreign policy matter, Trump has an opportunity to shift the national dialogue away from Charlottesville to urgent matters involving U.S. foreign policy. Trump’s approval ratings shot up on Rasmussen Reports to 45% when he confronted the North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un While given no credit in the liberal media confronting the North Korean tyrant, Trump showed leadership getting the dictator to stand down. Shifting to Afghan policy, Trump has a chance to change the national dialogue, consumed with Charlottesville. No matter how old the Afghan War, Trump has no real option other than adding troops to neutralize the Taliban. No one expects the Afghan army to assert control over Afghanistan anytime soon. What the Pentagon expects is for the Afghan army to grow more self-sufficient to eventually challenge the Taliban on its own.
