'Good' war turns sour for Obama

Six months after proclaiming a new commitment to the war in Afghanistan, United States President Barack Obama is under growing pressure to make what would amount to a U-turn in US policy and scale back America's commitment to a conflict that many experts - and a majority of the public - fear may be unwinnable.

The debate was thrown into stark relief by the leaked report of General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of US and allied forces in Afghanistan, warning that the war might be lost within a year without a further boost in troop strength and a major change in strategy to combat the spreading Taleban insurgency.

McChrystal's bleak assessment coupled with Washington's frustration with the Afghan leader Hamid Karzai and the fraud-ridden election over which he presided, has reignited a rift between Vice-President Joseph Biden and Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State, over how the war should be waged.

It has also left Obama facing a fateful choice: whether to go along with his generals and send yet more troops, or stand current policy on its head.

Spoken or unspoken, behind the debate lurks the Vietnam War and the current conflict's growing similarities with it. The stakes are now huge - so huge that the President barely mentioned Afghanistan in his address to the United Nations General Assembly yesterday. If Washington is perceived as opposing a further troop build-up, or leaning towards a reduction, then other countries in the coalition, where the eight-year-long war is even more unpopular than in the US, will rush for the exits.

Hitherto, the issue of the war in Afghanistan has seemed straightforward. In contrast to Iraq, Afghanistan has been the "good war" - a war of necessity, fought to make sure that a repeat of the 9/11 attacks, directed from Afghanistan by an al Qaeda sheltered by the Taleban, would never occur again.

Underlining this reinvigorated commitment, Obama authorised an increase in US strength in Afghanistan to 68,000 by the end of the year, and named McChrystal, previously in charge of US special forces, as his new commander on the ground. But the latter's recommendation of a boost of 30,000 to 40,000 confronts this president with a dilemma akin to that facing his predecessor over Iraq three years ago: to surge or not to surge? Essentially the choice, in strategic jargon, is between counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency.

The latter, implying a broad war against the Taleban to prevent it returning to power, seems to be what McChrystal has in mind, and has long been backed by Clinton. Only this week, she had scathing words for those who argued that al Qaeda was no longer a factor in Afghanistan. "If Afghanistan is taken over again by the Taleban, I can't tell you how fast al Qaeda would be back."

The Vice-President wants a narrower focus on al Qaeda itself, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where security forces have scored some important successes against the terrorist organisation and its Taleban allies. Under this approach, the US would require fewer forces.

Instead of trying to protect the general population from the Taleban and operating a "hearts and minds" policy to win over civilian support, it would concentrate on targeted strikes on al Qaeda operatives, relying on umnanned drones, missile attacks and the special forces where McChrystal is an expert. The training of Afghan government forces would be speeded up.

A third faction advocates a compromise - scaling back the requested troop increase, or starting to reverse it, while at the same time ensuring that the country does not collapse into chaos.

The White House and Pentagon are studying the report, and it will be "weeks" before a decision is made, Administration officials say. But Obama, once so trenchant, is hedging his bets. All options are on the table, he indicated during his blitz of the talk shows this week. "The first question is, are we doing the right thing?" he told CNN.

Complicating matters further, Congressional leaders are demanding a personal accounting from McChrystal on how the war is going. In the meantime, Obama is increasingly in a corner.

As Republicans constantly remind him, for the US to wind down its commitment would send a message of weakness and inconsistency to friends and foes alike. But to press on with a long, inconclusive war in a distant corner of Asia carries well-known and equal perils.

Events are bearing out the famous aphorism of Mark Twain, that "while history doesn't repeat itself, it rhymes".

TWO ASIAN WARS

Similarities: As in the former South Vietnam, Washington is propping up a corrupt regime in Afghanistan that does not command the allegiance of many of its people. In both, the US is trying a "hearts and minds" campaign to win the loyalty of civilians - and failing. In Afghanistan, as in Vietnam, the goal of the conflict is not clear.

AFGHANISTAN
Length: 8 years, 2001 to 2009
US troops: 60,000
Cost: US$185 billion
Deaths: 842
Justification: Afghanistan is a post-Cold War conflict, in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

VIETNAM
Length: 8 years, 1965 to 1973
US troops: 500,000 at its height
Cost: US$600 billion in today's dollars
Deaths: 58,000
Justification: Vietnam was fought in the name of the "domino theory" - that if one country in Southeast Asia went communist, the rest would follow.

- INDEPENDENT