Obama's Afghanistan strategy under siege

WASHINGTON - Monday's release by WikiLeaks of tens of thousands of classified documents detailing the travails of the United States military in Afghanistan and Pakistan's secret support for the Taliban from 2004 through 2009 comes amid a growing crisis of confidence here in the nearly nine-year-old war.

Coming on top of the steady increase in US and North Atlantic Treaty organization (NATO) casualties in Afghanistan - July may yet exceed June as the highest monthly death toll for US and NATO forces since the war began in late 2001 - the unprecedented leak can only add to the pessimism that has spread from the liberal wing of the Democratic Party to the heart of the foreign policy establishment, and even to a growing number of Republicans.

What hope was generated by President Barack Obama's appointment last month of General David Petraeus, whose counter-insurgency (COIN) tactics are widely credited with curbing Iraq's rapid descent into all-out civil war three years ago, to command US forces in Afghanistan has largely dissipated as a result of the steady flow of bad news - of which the WikiLeaks document dump and the weekend capture by the Taliban of two US seamen in a remote part of the country were only the latest examples.

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While the urgency with which these alternative strategies are being floated reflects the foreign policy elite's disunity over what is to be done, recent polls suggest that public confidence in the current strategy is in steady decline.
Growing - although hardly overwhelming - majorities believe that the Afghan war, currently funded at about US$100 billion a year and which last month took the lives of 102 NATO soldiers, has not been worth the cost. Much larger majorities believe the war is either stalemated or being lost.

Public disillusionment is increasingly reflected in the US Congress where a $37 billion emergency war bill has been held up for nearly a month amid doubts about US strategy, doubts that even Petraeus appears unable to dispel.

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Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman John Kerry, whose loyalty to Obama's foreign policy in general and Afghanistan strategy, in particular, has been much appreciated by the White House, has become increasingly uneasy in recent weeks.

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The result, when combined with mounting monthly U.S. death tolls, has been rising discontent, both within Congress and the general public. A recent national Bloomberg poll found that 58% of Americans considered the war effort a "lost cause," while Gallup has tracked a steady increase in the percentage of Americans who believe sending U.S. forces to Afghanistan in 2001 was a mistake, from 30% when Obama took office to 38% today. TIME

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Turning to the war in Afghanistan, do you think the U.S. can win the war or do you think it is a lost cause?

36 Can win the war

58 It is a lost cause

6 Not sure



Which of the following do you think is the best policy for US involvement in Afghanistan:


60 Stick to the plan to start withdrawal of forces in July of next year, even if the country is still as unstable as it is today

37 Be open to keeping current number of forces in Afghanistan—or even adding more—if the
country is still unstable in July of next year

3 Not sure

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