In a room full of young Army cadets at the nation’s oldest military academy Tuesday night, President Barack Obama took ownership of the Afghanistan war.
Obama announced to Americans in a primetime nationally televised address that he has ordered the deployment of 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan, and he promised to begin to draw down U.S. forces there in July 2011.
He sought to portray the buildup as the beginning of the end of an eight-year long war, a temporary jolt to rectify a deteriorating situation that threatens Americans’ safety at home and abroad.
“We are in Afghanistan to prevent a cancer from once again spreading through that country,” Obama said. “This is the epicenter of the violent extremism practiced by al Qaeda. It is from here that we were attacked on 9/11, and it is from here that new attacks are being plotted as I speak. This is no idle danger; no hypothetical threat.”
The first of the troops will begin arriving in Afghanistan by early next year, he said, and the full 30,000 will be on the ground by the summer.
Obama’s decision increases the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan to about 100,000 at a time when support for the war among Americans, and members of his own party in Congress, has significantly waned.
That sentiment was the subtext of his 40-minute speech. As he made his case for an 18-month, $30 billion surge in Afghanistan, he promised he would not set goals that stretch the country beyond its means and interests.
“That is why our troop commitment in Afghanistan cannot be open-ended – because the nation that I am most interested in building is our own,” Obama said.
And at times through the speech, the president sounded a defensive note—as when he rebutted allegations that he’d taken too long to make up his mind on an Afghan strategy.
“There has never been an option before me that called for troop deployments before 2010, so there has been no delay or denial of resources necessary for the conduct of the war,” Obama said. “Instead, the review has allowed me ask the hard questions. . . Given the stakes involved, I owed the American people – and our troops – no less.”
The president emphasized the speed with which he’s sending in fresh forces, saying it is a way to blunt recent Taliban gains and put pressure on the Afghan government to do more to bolster its own police and military forces.
He also took on directly those who compare Afghanistan to Vietnam, saying that’s a “false reading of history” that ignores that the United States’ efforts in Afghanistan has the support of 43 nations.
And he pointedly referred to his own opposition to the Iraq war as a presidential candidate – a position that helped him springboard to the nomination over Hillary Clinton as a first-term senator.
“Now, we must come together to end this war successfully,” he said.
Obama said he expects the Afghan government to step up its ability to take control of its own country quickly, allowing U.S. forces to exit, by bolstering its own military and police forces. The president made no explicit reference to allegations of widespread corruption in the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, but said he expects a partnership in Afghanistan ‘grounded in mutual respect. . . . The days of providing a blank check are over.”
Obama also touched on his expectations for Pakistan, which the United States has long accused of not doing enough to rout al-Qaida within its borders. U.S. officials “have made it clear that we cannot tolerate a safe-haven for terrorists whose location is known, and whose intentions are clear,” he said.
After the speech, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said in a statement: “It is clear that the President’s deliberative approach to his decision, which allowed him to hear from a wide range of military, civilian and Congressional voices, will strengthen the clarity and focus of our mission.”
But while Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona said he supports committing more troops to Afghanistan, he said he
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