IN a pronounced reversal of policy on ending the longest war in America’s history, President Barack Obama has come up with a new announcement on troop levels in Afghanistan beyond 2016. The decision stands in sharp contrast to his upbeat, but unrealistic, proclamations of bringing home all US troops from the conflict-wrecked country by the end of next year.

Nearly a year ago, the president received a long round of applause from American soldiers in Hawaii, where he said: “Because of the extraordinary service of the men and women in the armed forces, Afghans have a chance to rebuild [their] own country. We are safer. It’s not going to be a source of terrorist attacks again.”

But his body language told an altogether different story recently when he unveiled a new withdrawal timeline, citing heightened Taliban, Al Qaeda and Daesh (as the self-styled Islamic State is also known) threats. A big U-turn by any definition, the move is at odds with his self-congratulatory assertion that he was turning the page on the 15-year conflict he had inherited from his predecessor.

In a televised address from the White House, Obama insisted he was absolutely confident that he was making the right choice. “As your commander-in-chief, I believe this mission is vital to our national security interests in preventing terrorist attacks against our citizens.”

The Kunduz offensive has shown the Afghan forces’ weaknesses.

America’s combat mission has already ended. The remaining troops are supposed to continue chasing militants and training the Afghans. Unfortunately, for the president, neither of the two objectives could be realised even in 2012 when the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force was at its peak strength of nearly 150,000.

However phrased, the decision effectively means giving up a moment that Obama had long cherished to mark before leaving office: minimising the US military role to an embassy-level force. Subsequently, the decree on ending the conflict will have to come from his successor.

Obama’s legacy will be a foreign policy doctrine that seeks to tamp down present conflicts and prevent new ones from breaking out. This policy has come to be construed as unwarranted foot-dragging on using force — even when necessary — and showing weakness to foes.

On the campaign trail in 2008, he had promised leading the US out of the Afghan quagmire. Seven years on, that vow remains far from honoured. In all fairness, the situation in Afghanistan had almost spun out of control before Obama won the battle for the White House. As such, the conflict was not easy to bring to an acceptable end.

Even his much-touted troop surge option turned out to be a flash in the pan in terms of stabilising Afghanistan. Admittedly, the president had a lot of political mileage to gain from a complete pullout, but his timelines have been arbitrary. Bleak weekly reports that he received from commanders on the ground on the preparedness of the Afghan forces made the president keep changing his mind.

Last month’s fleeting capture of Kunduz by the Taliban bloodily highlighted the deep flaws of the Afghan forces. The debacle also embarrassingly exposed the futility of billions of dollars spent in international aid and military training programmes over the past decade and a half.

By the end of 2014, the US had poured $100 billion into Afghanistan since 2001. Around 60pc was used to equip and train the Afghan army. For 2015, the figure was put at a staggering $5.7bn. The cost for the new plan is projected at $14.6 million for 2017, compared to $10m for the Kabul-specific presence.

On Oct 3, a US helicopter struck a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, killing around 24 patients and medics. The Nobel Peace Prize-winning medical charity and the UN denounced the raid as a possible war crime, forcing Obama to tender a rare apology for the mistaken raid.

The Afghan Taliban’s recent offensives in Kunduz and other major cities made agonisingly evident the local forces’ inability to maintain security even in urban centres and the inadequacy of US efforts to train the Afghan army into a reliable force before the drawdown.

The delayed pullout cannot turn the war around nor can Obama’s decision — dubbed as the best of bad choices — be perceived as an open-ended commitment. Derided by many as a misstep, his volte-face could be a knotty issue in the 2016 US presidential election.

America’s Nato allies are likely to follow in its footsteps by extending their Sisyphean military campaigns. However, absent a peace deal with the insurgents, the revised game plan may fizzle out like the previous ones.

The grim reality is that peace will continue to elude Afghanistan as long as Pakistan does not keep its promises held out to President Ashraf Ghani. He has reason to feel betrayed and politically isolated by a neighbour he counted on.

The writer is a freelance journalist based in Peshawar.

Published in Dawn, October 20th , 2015

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