By David French
Tuesday, September 03, 2019
It appears the Trump administration is on the verge of an
“agreement” with the Taliban that could represent the beginning of the end of
America’s ground-troop presence in Afghanistan. Note well that I did not use
the phrase that many in the media are using. I did not say that this agreement
would “end America’s longest running war,” because it almost certainly will
not. Instead, it will mark an American retreat in a war that will rage on for
the foreseeable future, regardless of our wishful thinking.
America’s dilemma is simple: It’s facing a relentless
political reality that is increasingly incompatible with its national-security
needs. The American people want to end our long-standing wars and bring our
troops home. But when and if we do retreat, our enemies rush to fill the
vacuum, gaining prestige and restoring their strength.
The political reality is simple. Going into 2020, both
major parties are likely to be united in their commitment to withdrawing from
Afghanistan. The only question will be whether the desired withdrawal is total
or leaves a very small residual “counterterrorism” force. The Trump
administration is negotiating the current deal with the Taliban, and Trump has
often expressed his desire to leave the Afghan war. Each of the leading Democratic
candidates also wants out.
There’s a good chance that by next summer we’ll see
substantial troop reductions, combined with competing vows to remove the
remaining force as fast as possible. In other words, the American people are
likely to get what they want. And that’s exactly what worries me. I fear that
we’ve learned nothing from our nation’s misbegotten recent retreats. In our
justified, virtuous, and completely understandable desire for peace, we’re
forgetting that there can be no peace unless all sides stop their war.
In 2011, President Obama executed a politically popular
but ultimately unwise withdrawal from Iraq. Rather than negotiate a new
status-of-forces agreement, he pulled out. Three years later, with ISIS
committing genocide, beheading Americans, and ultimately plotting and inspiring
a wave of terror at home and abroad, we were back in combat. Soon enough, we
were back in ground combat. And soon after that, we were in ground combat in
Iraq and Syria.
Last year, President Trump abruptly declared his
intention to pull American troops out of Syria. After Secretary of Defense
James Mattis resigned, Trump partially reversed himself, permitting a reduced
troop presence. Already, we’re paying the price. The Defense Department’s
inspector general warned last month that ISIS is reconstituting, and our
partial drawdown has decreased our ability to assist our allies and monitor
conditions in key locations on the ground.
Now the White House is contemplating our withdrawal from
Afghanistan, which, as David Petraeus points out, would be even more dangerous
than Obama’s Iraq withdrawal:
Iraq had largely been stabilized by
the time the last U.S. combat elements left, with al Qaeda having been routed
during the 2007 surge. In Afghanistan, by contrast, the Taliban are far from
defeated, while some 20 foreign terrorist organizations like al Qaeda and ISIS
retain a presence in the region. It is unlikely that any will join a peace
deal.
We know that terrorists are far more dangerous when
they’re able to create and maintain safe havens abroad. We also know that those
safe havens are dangerous even when they exist in remote, tribal Afghanistan,
because they served as the base of operations for the terrorists who planned
and executed the 9/11 attacks. And we should be under no illusion that the
Taliban will lift a finger to stop its terrorist allies from creating and
maintaining more such safe havens once we leave.
The shame of this moment is that withdrawals are being
pondered despite the fact that the actual commitment of combat power necessary
to keep the terrorist threat at bay is a small fraction of what it was at its
highest. By 2011, we did not need an immense, surge-level force to help keep
Iraq stable. By 2018, we had crushed much of the physical ISIS caliphate in
Syria and Iraq with a relatively small deployment of American might.
As for Afghanistan? Once again, our current troop
presence is small compared to its peak level during Obama’s Afghan surge. And
while these forces cannot destroy jihadists entirely (an extraordinarily
difficult, elusive goal), they can and do prevent a recurrence of the nightmare
of 2014 or the sanctuaries terrorists enjoyed before 9/11. They are part of a
legacy of military deployments that have succeeded at their most fundamental
job: keeping the nation far more secure than most Americans dared to hope when
we pondered the future after the Twin Towers fell.
Moreover, while we mourn each and every life lost, our
casualty rates have plummeted. The vast bulk of the American blood spilled in
the War on Terror was spilled years ago, and the price to maintain the status
quo has decreased to the point where far
more American soldiers now die in training than in combat.
No one wants a “forever war.” But at the same time,
national self-defense is a perpetual obligation. We simply can’t stop wars on
our own, and to suggest otherwise is to give the American people false hope.
Our nation is understandably weary of war, but that’s exactly when leaders
should make the case for continued commitment. If there’s a way out of the
current conflict between political realities and national-security necessities,
it’s for leaders to make this case clearly and convincingly. In our long staring
contest with the jihadists, now is not the time to blink.
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