WASHINGTON — With much of his party largely opposed to expanding military operations in Afghanistan, President Barack Obama could soon be forced into the awkward political position of turning to congressional Republicans for support if he follows the recommendations of the commanding U.S. general there.
Congressional Democrats have begun promoting a compromise package of additional resources for Afghanistan that would emphasize training for Afghan security forces but deny Gen. Stanley McChrystal the additional combat troops he has indicated he needs to regain the initiative against the Taliban insurgency. The emerging Democratic consensus is likely to constrain the president as he considers how best to proceed with an increasingly unpopular war.
On Wednesday, Obama chaired a three-hour discussion on Afghanistan at a meeting of Cabinet members and senior officials at the White House. The meeting was largely a reassessment of the past eight years of American involvement in the region, with the president repeatedly probing his military and civilian advisers to justify their assumptions, according to one participant. This source said there was a recognition that the decision facing Obama is one of the most critical of his presidency.
In interviews over the past week, Democratic leaders have endorsed the change in military focus and the demand for expedited training of Afghan security forces that McChrystal outlined in his stark initial assessment of the war. But they expressed deep misgivings over McChrystal’s impending request for what could be as many as 40,000 new U.S. troops. Some argue that any increase in the U.S. military presence would help the Taliban whip up public anger toward an expanding foreign occupation that already comprises more than 100,000 U.S. and NATO soldiers and Marines.
“We basically need a much larger Afghan army much quicker — that’s the bottom line, that’s the winning strategy,” said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “Before we commit to additional combat forces, which has a distinct negative, not only for our overstretched troops but also the footprint argument, I believe we must do these other things that are the best way to succeed.”
Levin’s argument is echoed by many Democrats in the Senate, which is set to vote this week on a $636 billion defense appropriations bill, including $128 billion for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Congress would be called on to approve additional funds if Obama decides to expand the war effort in Afghanistan, as McChrystal has recommended.
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said history demands that the administration and Congress vet the mission before committing more forces. “You know, in Vietnam, we heard the commanding general on the ground saying we need more troops. We heard the president of the United States say if we just put in more troops, we’re going to see the light at the end of the tunnel,” he said in an interview for The Washington Post’s “Voices of Power” series. “And the fact is that they were wrong because they never examined the underlying assumptions on which our involvement was based.”
Recent opinion polls have shown that only a minority of Americans believe the war is worth fighting, and the flawed presidential election in August has eroded the Obama administration’s confidence in the Afghan government. Much of the opposition to the war is rooted in Obama’s political base, which is angry that he is ending one war in Iraq only to expand another in Afghanistan, even though he pledged in his campaign to do just that.
Obama and his senior advisers, including McChrystal, who participated by video link, on Wednesday concluded two days of initial discussions on the general’s assessment. The talks marked the first formal internal White House debate over the report’s recommendations, which, if carried out in full, would greatly expand the U.S. commitment to the war in Afghanistan, in terms both of military presence and civilian assistance to build a more stable government from the provinces to Kabul.
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