Obama Alters Plan, Will Keep More Troops in Afghanistan

The new plan, announced the day before Obama attends a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation summit in Poland, marked the culmination of a delicate debate within his administration about how many troops to pull out – if any.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani welcomed Obama’s decision.

The president highlighted recent successes by Afghan forces against the Taliban but acknowledged that the security situation in the country remains precarious.

“Even as they improve, Afghanistan security forces are still not as strong as they need to be”, said the president.

About a third of US troops there now are engaged in counter terrorism operations; the additional forces are likely to be added to that effort, a USA official explained to The Daily Beast. But a Taliban resurgence caused the White House to re-think its exit strategy.

February 2013: “By the end of next year, our war will be over”, Obama says during his State of the Union address. You’ve been unable to prevail.

“The larger story of the war is a politicized, deeply corrupt Afghan security force that has to be funded long enough from the outside to maintain a stalemate that will allow for an eventual political settlement”, Biddle told FP. And the commitment of the worldwide community, including the United States, to Afghanistan and its people will endure’.

Obama noted that the next president chosen by American voters in November – whether presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump or Democratic hopeful Hillary Clinton – will inherit America’s longest war.

President Obama came into office pledging to end the US military role in Afghanistan’s war.

As president, he oversaw a troop “surge” of 33,000 forces in December of 2009 in addition to the roughly 70,000 soldiers that were already there.

“Afghanistan is not a flawless place”, Obama said, adding that it was one of the poorest countries in the world.

“This is where al-Qaida is trying to regroup”.

Obama’s announcement is an acknowledgement that Afghan forces, who took charge of the country’s security in 2015, still face massive institutional shortcomings.

“We have to press the Afghan government to make certain that they are actually working for their people”, Obama argued in 2008.

The Taliban remains a threat, the president said, and in some areas they have actually gained ground against government forces.

In particular, the Pentagon needs to maintain a steady troop level to ensure continued Congressional funding for the Afghan cause, Biddle said.

“Compared to the 100,000 troops we once had there, today, fewer than 10,000 remain”.

A policeman searches a passenger at a police checkpoint in Ghazni province, eastern Afghanistan, July 4, 2016. He was flanked in the Roosevelt Room of the White House by Defense Secretary Ash Carter and Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford Jr., chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The US president said the revised troop deployment will serve the dual objective of giving the next president a “solid foundation for continued progress in Afghanistan”, as well as sending “a message to the Taliban and all of those who have opposed Afghanistan’s progress”.

But Obama’s own admission, that’s been more hard than he expected.

Obama said “the narrow missions” assigned to USA forces will not change, and that they will remain focused on “training” Afghan forces and “supporting” operations against al-Qaeda and other armed groups, including the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS). They included Gen. John F. Campbell, who had been the top US commander in Kabul until four months ago, and retired Gen. David Petraeus. Because of the volume of reader comments, we can not review individual moderation decisions with readers.