Painfully slow drawdown

In the latter part of Wednesday evening's address to the nation on Afghanistan policy, President Obama said: "America, it is time to focus on nation-building here at home."

But the policies the president outlined prior to that statement indicate that his "focus on nation-building here at home" remains fuzzy.

The president said he will bring 10,000 U.S. troops home by the end of this year. That will leave about 90,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, an increase of roughly 50,000 from when he took office. Even when he brings home an additional 20,000 by the end of summer 2012, about 70,000 U.S. troops still will be in Afghanistan. Most troops won't be home until the end of 2014. So relief from the $120 billion bill Americans pay annually for the war in Afghanistan will be minimal and gradual.

President Obama has noted previously that it is impossible to sustain unpopular foreign wars. Afghanistan certainly qualifies. Fifty-six percent of Americans, in a recent poll, wanted all U.S. troops withdrawn now. That sentiment stems in part from the monetary cost. The trillion dollars the United States has spent on wars in the past decade does not seem like a sound investment. The debt those helped create makes it harder to believe in Mr. Obama's pledge, repeated Wednesday night, to "invest in America's greatest resource - our people."

Americans also are disgusted with the incomplete success in Iraq and the slow progress in Afghanistan, where President Hamid Karzai increasingly sounds like our foe. Have those two wars been worth the loss of 6,000 U.S. troops?

Many Americans also feel that, with the killing of Osama bin Laden, we have achieved our primary goal.

The central feature of Mr. Obama's policy, going forward, is the expectation that by maintaining relatively high troop levels through 2014 the United States and our allies can solidify gains and allow Afghanistan to become a self-sustaining, self-protecting democracy. That seems, frankly, like a long shot.

Mr. Obama undoubtedly also is making the political calculation that if he makes a hasty withdrawal and Kabul falls to the Taliban, or Al-Qaeda manages a strike on U.S. soil, he will be blamed. Such a strike also could have economic consequences that, at least in the short term, are as bad as lingering debt.

But while Mr. Obama is correct to remain vigilant about the terrorist threat, to be ultimately successful, the United States must develop strategies that do not involve foreign occupations.

In Palm Beach County, 'most difficult budget ... - Post on Politics

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