HOUSE Republican Leader John Boehner

No More Excuses for Delay on Afghanistan

Yesterday, “Afghanistan’s election commission declared incumbent Hamid Karzai the winner of the country’s presidential contest and canceled a second round of voting, ending a political drama that had thrown the country into two months of turmoil,” the Wall Street Journal reported this morning.

In March 2009, President Obama outlined a new counterinsurgency strategy to secure Afghanistan - which he has called the central front in the war on terror - against a radical terrorist threat.  But after the Washington Post reported two months ago that General Stanley McChrystal “needs more forces within the next year and bluntly states that without them, the eight-year conflict ‘will likely result in failure,’” - the Administration has used virtually every excuse under the sun to delay approving Gen. McChrystal’s request. 

House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) commented yesterday:

Now that it is clear that President Karzai will remain in office, the White House has no further pretext for delaying the decision on giving General McChrystal the resources he needs to achieve our goals in Afghanistan. Delaying the decision puts our men and women fighting there in greater danger every single day… It’s time for the Obama Administration to give our commander on the ground the resources he needs to protect our troops and achieve the goals the President has said he supports.

Many Democrats agree, including House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-MO), who stated yesterday, “I continue to believe that Gen. McChrystal’s counterinsurgency plan is the right approach, including his call to build capability at the local level.”

But the Administration may still be weeks away from deciding.  NBC News Correspondent Chuck Todd reported last night on NBC’s Nightly News that “with the runoff now off…the President doesn’t have a reason for delaying a decision on that Afghanistan strategy, but don’t expect it in the next week.  I’m told that he wants another meeting from the Joint Chiefs of Staff.  He would like more military options, and a decision…might not come until Thanksgiving.”

The Wall Street Journal summarized the stakes in Afghanistan nicely in an editorial this morning:

The strategic reality is that we’re fighting in Afghanistan in our own national security interest-to defeat al Qaeda and deny it a safe haven either on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border or once again inside Afghanistan. Those Taliban who would protect al Qaeda must also be defeated.

It’s time to do what is right and approve Gen. McChrystal’s request for more resources to implement the President’s March 2009 strategy.  No More Excuses.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009 at 5:40 pm and is filed under War on Terror. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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