US President Barack Obama could read the grim assessment of the war in Afghanistan from his top military commander there in two possible ways.
He could read General Stanley McChrystal’s report as a blunt and impassioned last-chance plea for a revamped counterinsurgency strategy bolstered by thousands more combat troops to rescue the beleaguered, eight-year mission.
Or he could read it as a searing indictment of US-led NATO military operations and a corrupt Afghan civilian government, pitted against a surprisingly adaptive and increasingly dangerous insurgency.
Either way, McChrystal’s 66-page report with the deceptively bland title Commander’s Initial Assessment is serving to catalyze the thinking of a president — who is keenly aware of the historical perils of a protracted, faraway war — about what he can realistically accomplish in this conflict, and whether his vision for the war and a commitment of US troops is the same as his general’s.
Obama faces a deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan, growing opposition to the war at home from Democrats and a desire to put off any major troop decision while he still needs much political capital to pass major health care legislation in Congress.
But even as the president expresses skepticism about sending more US troops to Afghanistan until he has settled on the right strategy, he is also grappling with a stark reality: It will be very hard to say no to McChrystal.
Obama has called Afghanistan a “war of necessity,” and in the most basic terms he has the same goal as his predecessor president George W. Bush did after the Sept. 11 attacks: to prevent another major terrorist assault.
“Whatever decisions I make are going to be based first on a strategy to keep us safe, then we’ll figure out how to resource it,” Obama said last Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation. “We’re not going to put the cart before the horse and just think by sending more troops we’re automatically going to make Americans safe.”
The White House expects McChrystal’s request to be not just for US troops but for NATO forces as well. This week, the White House is sending questions about his review back to the general in Kabul, Afghanistan, and expects to get responses by the end of next week.
Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat who heads the Armed Services Committee, said in an interview on Monday that he wants to know how the uncertainty surrounding the recent Afghan elections and a plan to reintegrate Taliban fighters into Afghan society could affect McChrystal’s troop request.
Obama has had only one meeting so far on the McChrystal review, but aides plan to schedule three or four more after he returns from the G20 summit meeting in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, at the end of this week.
Aides said it should take weeks, not months, to make a decision.
“The president’s been very clear in our discussion that he’s open minded and he’s not going to be swayed by political correctness one way or the other,” General James Jones, the national security adviser, said in an interview.
“Different people are going to have different opinions and he wants to hear them, but at the end of the day, he’s going to do what he thinks is the right thing for the United States and most especially for the men and women who have to respond to his orders,” he said.
Senior officers who work with McChrystal say he was surprised by the dire condition of the Afghan mission when he assumed command in June.
His concerns went beyond the strength and resilience of the insurgency. McChrystal was surprised by the lack of efficient military organization at the NATO headquarters and that a significant percentage of the troops were not positioned to carry out effective counterinsurgency operations.
There was a sense among McChrystal’s staff that the military effort in Afghanistan was disjointed and had not learned from the lessons of the past years of the war.
“We haven’t been fighting in Afghanistan for eight years,” said one officer. “We’ve been fighting in Afghanistan for one year, eight times in a row.”
In his assessment, McChrystal also portrayed a more sophisticated Taliban foe that uses propaganda effectively and taps into the Afghan prison system as a training ground.
Taliban leaders based in Pakistan appoint shadow governors for most provinces, install their own courts, levy taxes, conscript fighters and wield savvy propagandists. They stand in sharp contrast to a corrupt and inept government.
And Taliban fighters exert control not only through bombs and bullets.
“The insurgents wage a ‘silent war’ of fear, intimidation and persuasion throughout the year — not just during the warmer weather ‘fighting season’ — to gain control over the population,” McChrystal said in his report.
Administration officials said that McChrystal’s assessment, while very important, was just one component in the president’s thinking.
Asked on CNN last Sunday why after eight months in office he is still searching for a strategy, Obama responded: “We put a strategy in place, clarified our goals, but what the election has shown, as well as changing circumstances in Pakistan, is that this is going to be a very difficult operation.”
“We’ve got to make sure that we’re constantly refining it to keep our focus on what our primary goals are,” he said.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY PETER BAKER AND THOM SHANKER
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