In Monday’s blog, I looked at McChrystal’s recommendation for a significantly stepped up effort to stabilize Afghanistan, and a major shift in strategy to win over the Afghan people.

But many people, including influential actors within the administration and several readers who left comments on Monday, are advocating a different approach: pull out, and leave Afghans to their own devices. This blog looks at Plan B.

——-

“The Russians were in Afghanistan for 10 years. The Americans have been here for seven, and we will send them home in just three more years”.

That was how Mullah Abdul Salaam Zaeef, the Taliban’s former ambassador to Pakistan, described the movement’s message to the Afghan people when I met him in a drafty and bare Kabul room in March.

Zaeef, who was imprisoned for years in Bagram and Guantanamo, says he is no longer a member of the Taliban but is now acting as a mediator between its leadership and the Afghan government.

But his comments underline one of the West’s biggest problems in trying to regain the momentum in Afghanistan.

All the talk in the West is of an exit strategy, of when troops can start to be withdrawn.

And what better time for President Barak Obama to announce a drawdown of U.S. forces than during the next presidential campaign in 2011/2012 — concidentally a decade after they first arrived in Afghanistan?

The Taliban have spotted the West’s indecision and are exploiting it, reminding wavering Afghan villagers that they, not American troops, are there for the long haul.

As U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal said in his stark assessment of the problem this week, there is a “crisis of confidence among Afghans”.

“Further, a perception that our resolve is uncertain makes Afghans reluctant to align with us against the insurgents”.

That makes it all the more urgent for President Barack Obama to make some extremely tough decisions soon. What choice should he be making?

Some people are beginning to ponder the previously imponderable. Should the West cut its losses and run?

Perhaps we should admit that more troops will only make things worse, that nation-building in such distant and foreign terrain is impossible, that southern and eastern Afghanistan will forever remain a Taliban stronghold.

In this scenario, the West’s goals would be more limited.

Try to bring some members of the Taliban into the political process, and train the Afghan army to fight the remainder.

At the same time, the U.S. could pin al Qaeda’s leaders down with “precision” airstrikes and keep them on the run to stop them from planning major attacks on the West.

The strategy has its fans, and its attractions. But would it work?

Once the West leaves Afghanistan and gives up on the idea of nation building, there is no going back. The opportunity to create a more stable Afghanistan will essentially have gone.

Southern and eastern Afghanistan might start to look even more like Pakistan’s tribal areas. A weak central government would essentially have given up on the idea of controlling significant swathes of its own country.

Another problem, as the experience in Pakistan has proved, is that airstrikes are never “precision”. They kill civilians, and inflame anti-Western passions even further, steadily strengthening the hands of radicals.

They may have claimed the scalp of Baitullah Mehsud, but have yet to take out al Qaeda’s top leadership.

Remote bombing is tempting in the short term, but does it work as a long-term strategy.

And nation-building might be tough, but is the West really prepared to face the consequences of an ignominious withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the morale boost that would provide for al Qaeda and its allies?

For more Reuters political news, click here.

Photo credit: Reuters/Goran Tomasevic (U.S. Marines patrol in southern Afghanistan)

U.S. President-elect Barack Obama is not yet commander in chief of the armed forces, but he appears to be warming up to the role as he prepares to take office on Jan. 20 and begin withdrawing troops from Iraq and sending more to Afghanistan.
 
First, he used his Christmas message to pay tribute to the “selfless sacrifice” of the men and women in uniform, and then on Christmas Day, in his only public outing, he visited a Marine Corps base in Hawaii, where he is holidaying, to thank the Marines and sailors stationed there for their service.
 
He spent 75 minutes shaking hands, chatting with the servicemen and posing for photographs at their cafeteria, where they had been enjoying a traditional Christmas dinner before his surprise arrival.
 
Obama is no stranger to the base. He has been visiting it every day since his arrival to work out at the gym there. He broke that routine on Christmas Day, resetting the clock on the seven-day-a-week workout regimen that he religiously follows when at home in Chicago.
 
Some of the servicemen appeared bemused to see him, while others whipped out their camera phones to snap pictures after he walked into the cafeteria with a bellowed “Hi everybody, Merry Christmas.”
 
Local media reported that a Marine stationed at the base, Lance Corporal Thomas Reilly Jr, 19, had been killed in an attack in Iraq’s western Anbar province on Sunday.

BETHLEHEM, Pennsylvania - Republican John McCain’s military history is famous, but the service of his sons is less well known. And until recently, that’s exactly how the presidential candidate and his wife, Cindy, wanted it.
 
But on Wednesday, Mrs. McCain made a rare reference to her sons when criticizing the Illinois senator for his 2007 vote against a war funding bill. McCain has two sons in the military, and one has served in Iraq.  “The day that Sen. Obama decided to cast a vote to not fund my son when he was serving sent a cold chill through my body,” McCain told a crowded rally in Pennsylvania, an electoral battleground state.
 
“I would suggest that Sen. Obama change shoes with me for just one day and see what it means … to have a loved one serving in the armed forces and more importantly, serving in harm’s way,” she said. “I suggest he take a day and go watch our fine young men…and women deploy, get on those buses and leave with a smile.”
 
McCain also invoked vice presidential nominee Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s son, who recently deployed to Iraq.
 ”We have a lot in common, the McCain family and the Palin family,” she said. “We represent between us the Army, the Navy and the United States Marine Corps.”
 
Obama voted against the funding bill in 2007 but supported a version that included a timetable for withdrawal for U.S. troops from Iraq.
 
The son of Obama’s vice presidential running mate, Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, has just been sent to Iraq with the Army National Guard, and will be there for about a year. Obama has two young daughters. 

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage.

Photo credit: REUTERS/Carlos Barria

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. - Say goodbye to the FAFSA form if Hillary Clinton is elected president.

Reducing student loan paperwork may not qualify as a marquee issue like ending the Iraq war and establishing a universal health-care system. But it’s one way Clinton can portray herself as a detail-oriented policy wonk who will make voters’ lives easier.

While her rival Barack Obama delivers a broad message of hope and change, Clinton’s speeches are so laden with specifics you can almost see the bullet points.

For voters who deal with the federal bureaucracy on a regular basis, that can be an appealing proposition.

“The day I retired from the military, I became a third-class citizen,” one man told her during a question-and-answer session here. “I just wanted to thank you for what you’re doing for the veterans.”

Fayetteville is located next to the U.S. Army’s Fort Bragg, and Clinton spent much of her time discussing the difficulties faced by veterans. Surrounded by several retired military officials, Clinton promised to bolster a broad range of veterans programs from health care and tuition assistance to home loans.

She was cheered when she mentioned the shortcomings of Tricare, the military health plan.

And she promised to mothball FASFA, short for Free Application for Federal Student Aid, a form evidently much hated by the students forced to fill it out.

Clinton’s willingness to talk specifics was an important asset for Keith Zeigler, a Navy veteran who said Obama’s affluent, youthful supporters don’t have to worry about navigating the United States’ paltry safety net.

“They go to college to party. They have the money to pay their way out of trouble,” said Zeigler, who said he couldn’t afford to go to college and now drives a truck.

“They’re not educated in the ways of the real world,” he said.