Andrews: President's Afghanistan-Pakistan Strategy Will Lead to Quagmire

"I regret that President Obama, in his
desire to protect our nation from a genuine threat, has outlined a policy that
will undermine our security, not enhance it.

"The president's policy is already
uniting our enemies to fight us:

• The New York Times
  reports today that the Afghan and Pakistan Taliban are burying their
  differences and uniting forces to fight the United States in response to
  our military escalation;^[1]
• According to a
  recent study by the Carnegie Endowment, the
  single most important factor behind the resurgence of the Taliban is the
  presence of foreign forces on Afghan soil;^[2]
• The Coordinator of
  the al Qaeda/Taliban Monitoring Team of the UN Security Council has reported
  that al Qaeda aims to provoke a greater
  foreign military presence in Afghanistan
  and Pakistan
  to unite disparate tribes in fighting a common enemy.^[3]

"In short, the president's policy is
playing into the hands of al Qaeda and the Taliban by providing them with a
cause that unites and strengthens them.

"A stronger American military presence in Afghanistan and Pakistan
will make securing the support of regional stakeholders like Russia and China more difficult by placing US
forces on their sensitive borders for an indefinite period of time.^[4]

"Meanwhile, our NATO allies are
increasingly divided, putting the burden of waging this war increasingly on the
shoulders of Americans. Britain is the only
country that has committed more troops to Afghanistan. Others,
including Canada and the Netherlands,
have announced plans to bring their troops home.

"The policy announced today by President
Obama is economically unsustainable. Even before the escalation of troops, the
cost of our military intervention in Afghanistan is more than $2 billion
per month and rising. His announcement that he will be seeking $1.5 billion per
year for increased foreign aid to Pakistan is a small fraction of the
cost of our military commitment.

"Finally, no exit strategy
was announced or discussed despite the president's admonition last week
on national television that "there's got to be an exit
strategy."^[5]
While the president announced his intention to have performance benchmarks he
gave no indication as to what these performance benchmarks might be.

"We want to be able to support the
president and his efforts to protect the American people from the threat of al
Qaeda. But the policy announced today will fail to do so and instead takes a
significant step toward a perilous quagmire."

^[1]
"Pakistan and Afghanistan
Taliban Close Ranks," by Carlotta Gall, The
New York Times, March 27, 2009. Available at https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/27/world/asia/27taliban.html.

^[2]
Carnegie Endowment for Peace, "Focus and Exit: An Alternative Strategy
for the Afghan War," by Gilles Dorronsoro, January 2009. Available at https://carnegieendowment.org/files/afghan_war-strategy.pdf

^[3]
The International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political
Violence, "Seven Years After 9/11: Al-Qaida's Strengths and
Vulnerabilities," by Richard Barrett, September 2008.

^[4]
Leslie H. Gelb, "How to Leave Afghanistan," The New York Times, Opinion, March 12,
2009. Available at https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/13/opinion/13Gelb.html.

^[5]
President Obama, speaking with Steve Kroft, CBS 60 Minutes, March 20, 2009. https://www.cbsnews.com/sections/60minutes/main3415.shtml