In a relatively brief 1,540 word speech at
Bagram Air Base in a surprise trip to Afghanistan, President Obama
has framed the key elements of what America’s post-Afghanistan game will
look like: moving in 2013 to a full support role for an Afghan security
and police force now standing with a personnel of more than 352,000.
The full transition of roles and responsibility will be fully complete
by the end of 2014.
On Tuesday, Obama signed a binding agreement with Afghan President
Hamid Karzai pledging an ongoing responsibility and strategic
relationship between the U.S. and Afghanistan after the combat mission
of US forces today ended. The so-called ‘next’ strategic relationship
remains subject to speculation — with caveats that a SOFA, or Status of
Forces Agreement, governing the conditions under which U.S. soldiers
would be treated still had to be negotiated; that the U.S. Congress
would still have to agree annually to a budget that covers the ongoing
expenses of this important relationship; and that the number of
residual, non-combat troops left inside Afghanistan had not been
determined. Most believe that number will be in the 15,000-20,000
range.
Tuesday night (early Wednesday morning, in Afghanistan), the
president delivered a powerful message reminding Americans and the world
that the invasion of Afghanistan was triggered by al Qaeda’s terrorist
attacks on New York and Washington, D.C. The killing of bin Laden and
the decimation of the top tier of the al Qaeda network — the president
stating, “We devastated al Qaeda’s leadership, taking out over 20 of
their top 30 leaders” — has given Obama a key opportunity not only to
take credit for being an effective anti-terrorist occupant of the White
House but to check-off the box in Afghanistan and to shift U.S. military
and economic resources away from what has been a troubling and costly
exercise — one has not been amplifying American power around the world
but leading many nations to conclude that the U.S. was military so
overstretched and financially beleaguered that it could not support its
allies in times of need.
