raghu wrote:
I don't know why you are surprised. Obama never promised to leave
Afghanistan. He has always supported this war as the "good war".
The Globe and Mail (Canada)
November 4, 2008 Tuesday
Military sees Obama as key to victory in Afghanistan;
Democrat's popularity abroad will make European nations less
reluctant to contribute more troops, generals believe
BYLINE: DOUG SAUNDERS
DATELINE: LONDON
In normally hawkish military and diplomatic circles, it is being
called an "Obama boost": a widespread belief that the war in
Afghanistan may be winnable only if Barack Obama is elected
president tonight.
To a surprising degree, military and government officials in the
United States and Europe have pegged their hopes for victory in
Afghanistan or a reduction in violence to Mr. Obama's ability to
win over skeptical European audiences and persuade them to
contribute large numbers of troops to a war that is widely seen to
be in serious trouble.
Amid fast-increasing violence and declining public support in
Afghanistan, many top U.S., British and Canadian military
commanders and government officials involved with the war say in
private discussions that they believe the Afghan war will be lost
unless a large number of additional soldiers and civil workers - a
number that ranges from 60,000 to more than 100,000 - is sent to
Afghanistan by the end of next year.
There are currently about 64,000 troops in Afghanistan, including
2,500 Canadian soldiers. To bring about this effective doubling in
troops at a time when NATO has had difficulty getting its member
countries to contribute even 2,000 additional soldiers, officials
are counting on an Obama victory.
"The Europeans are likely to be more accommodating of the next
administration to increase their own troop presence," said James
Dobbins, who was President George W. Bush's envoy to Afghanistan.
"And I think Obama, if he becomes the next president, is greatly
more popular in Europe. So I think there's a honeymoon, and he'll
have more leverage to increase troops ... the effect is there, and
it's not negligible."
Mr. Obama, whose campaign has focused on the war in Afghanistan
far more than that of his Republican opponent, John McCain, has
pledged to remove all U.S. soldiers from Iraq within 16 months and
shift the military focus to Afghanistan.
This would contribute as many as 40,000 soldiers to the Afghan
war, though some analysts say that in practice the contingent
would be more in the range of 25,000 to 30,000, or about half the
required number.
The other half would have to come from North Atlantic Treaty
Organization countries, including Canada and most European
countries, which have been reluctant to contribute more troops.
This is where the military is putting its hopes on Mr. Obama.
A British general said in an off-the-record briefing last month
that he believes "a five-figure number" of soldiers can be made
available by Western European countries including Britain, but are
being held back because of a desire to avoid seeming to support
the Bush administration.
An Obama victory, he said, would provide an even greater number of
troops.
"I would say that there is a reasonable prospect of Obama getting
the Europeans to do more," said Charles Kupchan, a former U.S.
National Security Council director who is now a member of the
Council on Foreign Relations.
"One reason has to do with discomfort with President Bush, the war
in Iraq, and U.S. foreign policy during the past eight years. And
the discomfort with U.S. policy creates a domestic environment
across Europe which makes it harder for European governments to
step up to the plate in Afghanistan. Having Obama in the White
House will engender goodwill, which will buy European governments
more room for manoeuvre, more latitude to act."
Also, European and Canadian voters, and to some extent
governments, are seen to have lost any sense of purpose in the
Afghanistan war, and to have developed a skepticism toward U.S.
motives in the war. Because Mr. Bush has done so little to sell
the war, there is a widespread sense that countries are seeking
excuses to withdraw from the conflict.
"That's an area, I think, where Obama will be able to work with
his European allies to do a better job of selling the war to
skeptical publics," Mr. Kupchan said.
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