The Afghan exit plan marks a change in policy and a lowering of ambitions, writes LARA MARLOWEin Washington
ONE COULDN'T help noticing US president Barack Obama's demeanour as he stood behind the podium in the east room of the White House on Wednesday night. The New York Timescalled Obama's delivery of his speech on Afghanistan "businesslike".
Flat or deadpan would be a more accurate description. He looked like he longed to be upstairs instead, having a pillow fight with Sasha and Malia.
He is charting “a more centred course”, Obama said.
On this issue, the middle is the most uncomfortable place to be. In Afghanistan, he’s caught between a resurgent Taliban – who have been offered negotiations but appear to prefer waiting for the announced US departure – and the corrupt and feckless government of Afghan president Hamid Karzai.
Karzai rules at the whim of Washington, but his writ extends little beyond the boundaries of Kabul. US officials have begged him to stop referring to Nato troops as “occupation forces”.
In the US, Obama is caught between the military, with their chief congressional ally, Senator John McCain, and a growing majority of Americans who say it’s time to get out of Afghanistan now.
“The tide of war is receding,” Obama said on Wednesday night.
He promised to withdraw 10,000 troops – about 10 per cent of the US force there – by the end of this year, and another 23,000 troops by the end of next summer.
But two-thirds of the present force, some 66,000 Americans, will remain until 2014. Obama failed to explain what their presence for 3½ more years will accomplish, or how a departing army can hope to beat an indigenous insurgency that enjoys some popular support and has a sanctuary in neighbouring Pakistan.
The president’s Afghan speech nonetheless represented a policy shift. When he announced the 33,000-strong “surge” in December 2009, Obama bent to the will of military commanders.
This time, he defied their wishes to withdraw only 5,000 troops this year, and to continue the deployment of the remaining surge forces through to the end of next summer’s “fighting season”, that is to say until October or November 2012.
Gen David Petraeus, the outgoing commander in Afghanistan who is about to become head of the CIA, refused to sign off on the plan announced on Wednesday night, according to the New York Times.
The shift towards a counter- terrorism policy based on drone strikes and commando raids like the one that killed Osama bin Laden last month represents a victory for US vice-president Joe Biden, who opposed the surge.
The words “based on conditions on the ground” – used by administration hardliners to hedge the imminent drawdown when Obama promised it back in December 2009 – did not figure in his speech.
Several factors strengthened Obama in his low-key revolt against the generals. By ordering the killing of bin Laden, he established his credentials as a “security president”. The role is unexpected for a man who opposed the invasion of Iraq.
Obama alluded to disarray within the Republican Party, which also helps him.
“Some would have America retreat from our responsibility as an anchor of global security, and embrace an isolation that ignores the very real threats that we face,” he said.
Prominent Republican presidential candidates, including Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman, have called for a faster, deeper drawdown.
Obama referred to hawks like McCain too, saying that “others would have America over-extended, confronting every evil that can be found abroad”.
Public opinion is also pushing Obama to end the war. A poll by the Pew Research Centre this week found that, for the first time, a majority of Americans – 56 per cent – want US troops to leave Afghanistan immediately.
That rises to 60 per cent among independent voters and almost two-thirds of Democrats – the two groups whose loyalty Obama needs to be re-elected.
The US’s obsession with its debt crisis, slow recovery and 9.1 per cent unemployment rate also strengthen Obama’s case for getting out of Afghanistan. The US has spent more than €1,000 billion on war in the past decade, Obama noted. “It is time to focus on nation-building here at home,” he said.
The counterpart is a lowering of US ambitions. “We won’t try to make Afghanistan a perfect place,” Obama admitted.
Slowly but surely, he’s looking for the exit, what he termed a way to “responsibly end these wars”.