A New Strategy for Afghanistan

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When it comes to national security, I can't say I've found myself in agreement with Karl Rove and Newt Gingrich for the past eight years. But after reading through their supportive remarks on the President's Afghanistan speech to West Point the other night, it's rather pleasing to see that slowly but surely, they're coming around to my view of the world. That isn't to say everything in the President's speech came up roses--the needless (and frankly hypocritical) criticisms on domestic policy, for example, or the failure to address the central issues that plagued our Vietnamese effort and the risk of repeating those mistakes in Afghanistan. But I digress. What impressed me most about the President's speech was this simple passage:
 
"Finally, there are those who oppose identifying a time frame for our transition to Afghan responsibility.  Indeed, some call for a more dramatic and open-ended escalation of our war effort  -- one that would commit us to a nation-building project of up to a decade. I reject this course because it sets goals that are beyond what can be achieved at a reasonable cost, and what we need to achieve to secure our interests. Furthermore, the absence of a time frame for transition would deny us any sense of urgency in working with the Afghan government. It must be clear that Afghans will have to take responsibility for their security, and that America has no interest in fighting an endless war in Afghanistan."
 
Indeed. And what of those interests?
 
"Our overarching goal remains the same: to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and to prevent its capacity to threaten America and our allies in the future."
 
As I had counseled the President nearly 3 months earlier, focusing on anything other than ensuring Afghanistan was not a threat to the United States was a fools errand. Though my advice was only generally heeded in Monday's speech, for the most part we are moving in the right direction.
 
There will, of course, be challenges--challenges that will arise both in theater and here at home. War is an unpredictable enterprise, and the possibility of failure can never be ruled out, especially as our success in Afghanistan will be most dependent upon the decisions its citizens make about their future.
 
As difficult as that may seem though, I continue to believe our greatest challenge is here at home from partisans on both the neoconservative "right," and the liberal left. If we are to have any hope of achieving a measure of success in Afghanistan, the American people must reject the partisan pleas to abandon our nation's interests in favor of a hopelessly Utopian outcome.
 
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