Waffling over Afghanistan

The Obama administration can’t decide what to do about Afghanistan, said Christoph von Marschall in Germany’s Der Tagesspiegel. The president and his national security advisors are now engaged “in open debate” over whether to send more troops—and, if so, whether

to concentrate them in the cities or spread them across the country. The president has scheduled multiple meetings with analysts, diplomats, soldiers, and scholars to hear various views. The military, of course, wants more troops. But others “have been drawing parallels to Vietnam.” There, too, the generals kept demanding more troops and the White House kept complying, and the whole endeavor ended in disaster. That’s why the Obama administration is correctly giving the matter so much thought. “The decision on troops can only come after a careful analysis.”

But the military is getting impatient, said Alex Spillius in Britain’s Daily Telegraph. The commander of forces in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, gave a speech in London last week warning against a long delay in a new troop deployment. “This effort will not remain winnable indefinitely, and nor will public support,” he said. McChrystal also pointedly noted that relying on drone strikes—the approach favored by Vice President Joe Biden—would turn the country into “Chaosistan.” The general’s outspokenness “shocked and angered presidential advisors,” and the very next day, Obama summoned McChrystal to an “awkward” meeting aboard Air Force One in Copenhagen, where the president was lobbying for Chicago’s Olympic bid.

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The Republicans loved McChrystal’s remarks, said Corine Lesnes in France’s Le Monde. Indeed, for the right wing, McChrystal “has replaced David Petraeus in the role of miracle general.” But then, Americans of both parties tend to revere their military figures. Before Petraeus it was Gen. John Abizaid, who was described admiringly as an Arabist educated at Harvard—just the person to solve the Iraq mess once and for all. He failed to do so, of course. Now, McChrystal is getting the star treatment from the U.S. press, which marvels at his “ascetic regime of just one meal a day” and harps on the fact that it was his unit that captured Saddam Hussein. This lionization lends McChrystal’s recommendation for more troops great weight with the American people, with many columnists now warning of a quagmire unless the general gets the troops he wants.

Europeans, at least, should hold off on sending more troops, said Germany’s Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten in an editorial. The U.S. has long been pushing for Germany to beef up its contingent in Afghanistan, and now that our elections have given us a more conservative government, there’s even more pressure for additional deployments. But it’s unclear what their mission would be. Obama “continues to wait for enlightenment”—and the world waits with him.