(CNN).President Obama's timetable for winding down the war in Afghanistan may be too short for the United States to achieve its war aims but too long to hold American public support, observers said Tuesday.
Andrew Bacevich, a Boston University professor and former Army officer, said the balancing act could leave Obama facing "really unpalatable" choices in 2011 and beyond.
"If you're in my camp, you're hard-pressed to see how everything is going to go smoothly in Afghanistan," said Bacevich, who has called the Afghan war unnecessary and impossible to win.
"It's hard to conceive that public support will have risen," he said. "On the other hand, a president facing re-election who pulls the plug on a failing war is going to find himself charged with being an ineffective commander-in-chief."
Kori Schake, an associate professor at West Point and a former National Security Council staffer in the Bush administration, said the timetable Obama is laying out is "completely unrealistic."
Washington has been unable to commit the kind of civilian resources needed to help Afghanistan build civil institutions and has "an imperfect partner" in Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government, she said. It is unlikely to meet its goals for standing up an effective military and police force in that time.
"I think he's repeating a lot of mistakes that the Bush administration made in the early years of Iraq by suggesting that they will improve on the timeline we politically want them to improve," Schake said. "This is going to be hard, and it's going to take a long time."
And talk of a U.S. departure is "not something Afghan people want to hear," journalist and author Ahmed Rashid said.
"What they really want him to say is how he's going to improve security for ordinary people in the country, especially in the population centers," Rashid, the author of two books on the Taliban and the Afghan war, said on CNN's "Amanpour" program.
Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, resisted any talk of a timetable in Iraq and vetoed a war spending bill that would have required all U.S. combat troops to leave by March 2008. Setting a deadline, he argued, would allow insurgents to wait out the American presence.
Matthew Hoh, a former Marine officer and State Department official who resigned in protest of the administration's Afghanistan policy in September, argued Obama's expected timeline is too long.
"I think it should be sooner, coupled with serious negotiations to produce a political resolution to a conflict that has been going on for about 30 years now," Hoh said. Earlier on CNN's "American Morning," he said adding more troops to Afghanistan "will only increase the conflict."
"Roughly half of Afghanistan wants us in Afghanistan, and the other half doesn't," he said. "The other half that doesn't will fight us harder because they're fighting because they're occupied by foreign powers."
"Before you can talk to the Taliban, you have to position yourself in a position of strength," Rashid said. "And at the moment, the perception in Afghanistan among many ordinary people is the Taliban are winning and the Americans are losing."
The president is ordering military officials to get the reinforcements to Afghanistan within six months, White House officials said. But Peter Mansoor, a retired U.S. Army colonel who helped plan the "surge" campaign in Iraq in 2006, said the "critical element" in U.S. plans "is time, not necessarily troops."
"Any counterinsurgency takes years to fully tamp down the insurgents and create a viable state that we can leave as U.S. troops withdraw," Mansoor told CNN.
He said it is possible that U.S. troops could stabilize Afghanistan within the three-year horizon Obama is laying out, but "I just wouldn't want to take the risk that it will be, and I'd like to see a longer-term strategy out of the administration."
But Bacevich said Obama made an early mistake by "allowing himself to be cornered into obsessing about Afghanistan." Instead, he argued, with al Qaeda dispersed into Pakistan and beyond, U.S. policymakers need to rethink how they deal with the threat of terrorism.
"Afghanistan has kind of hijacked the larger foreign policy debate in ways that are not likely to be good for the United States and are not likely to be good for President Obama," he said.
Andrew Bacevich, a Boston University professor and former Army officer, said the balancing act could leave Obama facing "really unpalatable" choices in 2011 and beyond.
"If you're in my camp, you're hard-pressed to see how everything is going to go smoothly in Afghanistan," said Bacevich, who has called the Afghan war unnecessary and impossible to win.
"It's hard to conceive that public support will have risen," he said. "On the other hand, a president facing re-election who pulls the plug on a failing war is going to find himself charged with being an ineffective commander-in-chief."
Kori Schake, an associate professor at West Point and a former National Security Council staffer in the Bush administration, said the timetable Obama is laying out is "completely unrealistic."
Washington has been unable to commit the kind of civilian resources needed to help Afghanistan build civil institutions and has "an imperfect partner" in Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government, she said. It is unlikely to meet its goals for standing up an effective military and police force in that time.
"I think he's repeating a lot of mistakes that the Bush administration made in the early years of Iraq by suggesting that they will improve on the timeline we politically want them to improve," Schake said. "This is going to be hard, and it's going to take a long time."
And talk of a U.S. departure is "not something Afghan people want to hear," journalist and author Ahmed Rashid said.
"What they really want him to say is how he's going to improve security for ordinary people in the country, especially in the population centers," Rashid, the author of two books on the Taliban and the Afghan war, said on CNN's "Amanpour" program.
Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, resisted any talk of a timetable in Iraq and vetoed a war spending bill that would have required all U.S. combat troops to leave by March 2008. Setting a deadline, he argued, would allow insurgents to wait out the American presence.
Matthew Hoh, a former Marine officer and State Department official who resigned in protest of the administration's Afghanistan policy in September, argued Obama's expected timeline is too long.
"I think it should be sooner, coupled with serious negotiations to produce a political resolution to a conflict that has been going on for about 30 years now," Hoh said. Earlier on CNN's "American Morning," he said adding more troops to Afghanistan "will only increase the conflict."
"Roughly half of Afghanistan wants us in Afghanistan, and the other half doesn't," he said. "The other half that doesn't will fight us harder because they're fighting because they're occupied by foreign powers."
"Before you can talk to the Taliban, you have to position yourself in a position of strength," Rashid said. "And at the moment, the perception in Afghanistan among many ordinary people is the Taliban are winning and the Americans are losing."
The president is ordering military officials to get the reinforcements to Afghanistan within six months, White House officials said. But Peter Mansoor, a retired U.S. Army colonel who helped plan the "surge" campaign in Iraq in 2006, said the "critical element" in U.S. plans "is time, not necessarily troops."
"Any counterinsurgency takes years to fully tamp down the insurgents and create a viable state that we can leave as U.S. troops withdraw," Mansoor told CNN.
He said it is possible that U.S. troops could stabilize Afghanistan within the three-year horizon Obama is laying out, but "I just wouldn't want to take the risk that it will be, and I'd like to see a longer-term strategy out of the administration."
But Bacevich said Obama made an early mistake by "allowing himself to be cornered into obsessing about Afghanistan." Instead, he argued, with al Qaeda dispersed into Pakistan and beyond, U.S. policymakers need to rethink how they deal with the threat of terrorism.
"Afghanistan has kind of hijacked the larger foreign policy debate in ways that are not likely to be good for the United States and are not likely to be good for President Obama," he said.
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