Afghanistan Weekly War Update: Timeline for Withdrawal

June 21, 2011 | 1212 GMT U.S. President Barack Obama met with his national security team and the outgoing Commander of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and U.S. ForcesAfghanistan, Gen. David Petraeus, on June 15 to discuss the July deadline for the initial drawdown of surge forces in Afghanistan. The meeting comes as speculation runs rampant regarding the future course of U.S. strategy in Afghanistan. The Pentagon is reportedly pushing the White House to extend the surge for another 12-18 months. This would keep the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan at or close to the current level of nearly 100,000, with an additional 40,000 allied personnel in uniform. These would essentially remain through the 2012 fighting season. Outgoing Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has suggested that initial drawdowns should be modest and concentrate on consolidating support tail personnel while removing few, if any, members of the frontline tooth personnel. Maintaining a higher number of troops is desirable from a military and operational standpoint, as it gives commanders more options. Whether the request to effectively extend the surge by another 12-18 months is serious or mostly an attempt to frame the political debate and stave off more-rapid reductions remains unclear. U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Gen. John Toolan Jr., the commanding general of Regional Command Southwest, has voiced concerns that Afghan security forces will not be fully developed when the 2014 deadline for the end of combat operations arrives. In particular, he fears governance and infrastructure improvements cannot be completed within the current timeframe. Last week, Lt. Gen. William Caldwell, the commander of NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan, suggested that he does not expect to complete efforts to train indigenous Afghan security forces until 2016 or 2017.

Ultimately, the decision is not for Afghan military commanders alone to make; it also must be made in the context of global U.S. military strategy and U.S. politics. Some reports, including from STRATFOR sources, say the White House will seek to use the killing of Osama bin Laden and the appointment of Gen. David Petraeus as director of the Central Intelligence Agency to justify a more substantive shift from the counterinsurgency-focused strategy. Those reports have suggested that intelligence collected from the bin Laden raid has prompted the conclusion that the old apex al Qaeda core left straddling the AfghanPakistani border is weak and divided something STRATFOR has argued for years and can be managed through continued vigilance by a comparatively small contingent of special operations forces and an intelligence presence.

An announcement from the White House on the first phase of the drawdown and an update on the status of the war effort is expected June 22. Regardless of what Obama says in the announcement, there is considerable evidence that the White House will begin to reshape the psychology of the war this coming quarter, adjusting the manner in which it is defined and perceived, and setting the foundation for a more significant reduction in the forces and resources committed to Afghanistan.

Negotiations with the Taliban

Some form of political accommodation was always going to be part of any viable and sustainable exit from Afghanistan. As the U.S. seeks to accelerate its departure, a negotiated settlement now becomes even more important. Thus far, however, attempts to win over reconcilable elements of the Taliban and incorporate them into local power structures have seen only limited success. This has been particularly true of Taliban strongholds in the countrys restive southwest, where those who do change sides run the constant risk of targeted assassination attempts. Afghan President Hamid Karzai on June 18 confirmed that Washington has engaged the Taliban in talks aimed at a more comprehensive settlement. Gates said the same on June 19, but cautioned that these talks are in a very preliminary phase and are not likely to see a breakthrough anytime soon. The challenge to efforts by the West and the Afghan government to negotiate with the Taliban is that the Taliban perceives itself to be winning. Any indication that the United States wishes to accelerate its drawdown will enhance the Talibans sense of strength. In short, the United States needs the Taliban to come to an agreement more than the Taliban needs the United States to reach out to it. Meanwhile, the the United States, Kabul and Pakistan have discrete negotiating positions vis-a-vis the Taliban. This means there is no straight line bridging the decision to negotiate with a negotiated settlement. Pakistan is of pivotal importance. Redefining the war in Afghanistan means putting much more time and energy into reaching an accommodation with a Pakistan already facing substantial internal turmoil. Even if an accommodation can be reached in a meaningful time frame, it is not clear whether Pakistan is actually capable of delivering. As the United States begins to redefine the war in Afghanistan, some points of contention like removing Taliban leadership from terrorism lists, particularly the classified Joint Prioritized Effects List become more acceptable within the U.S. camp. Nevertheless, it remains politically difficult to negotiate with the likes of Mullah Mohammad Omar and the Haqqani network. Yet these very forces have the sway to make a negotiated settlement hold within much of the Taliban. Other points of contention like the Taliban desire to dissolve the Karzai government remain intractable.

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