Don’t Peg Troop Withdrawals to the Political Calendar
By Richard Fontaine President, CNAS,
August 2, 2019
US Army / Maj. Thomas Cieslak
Reductions in the U.S. presence should be tied to conditions on the ground in Afghanistan.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made news this week by suggesting that President Donald Trump has instructed him to pursue troop reductions in Afghanistan by Election Day 2020. “He’s been unambiguous,†Pompeo said. “End the endless wars. Draw down. Reduce.†After an uproar, the secretary blamed sloppy press reporting and said that any withdrawals of U.S. forces from Afghanistan will be based on conditions on the ground. Yet the comments resonated because of Trump’s clear and oft stated desire to end the war sooner rather than later.
Any pegging of American troop withdrawals to the U.S. political calendar would represent a strategic mistake, and it’s one that Trump himself rightly criticized Barack Obama for making during the previous administration. Obama planned to withdraw all forces from the country by the end of his second term, a commitment he abandoned after watching Iraq descend into chaos.
https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2019/08/dont-peg-troop-withdrawals-political-calendar/158899/?oref=d-river
