US public opinion has turned sharply against the Afghan war, writes LARA MARLOWE
THE MASSACRE of 16 Afghan civilians by a US soldier last Sunday has increased pressure on US president Barack Obama to define more clearly his policy in Afghanistan.
“The United States takes this as seriously as if it was our own citizens and our own children who were murdered,” Obama said in brief remarks in the Rose Garden at the White House yesterday.
“We are heartbroken over the loss of innocent life.”
Official US policy is to transfer responsibility for security to the Afghan military, make peace with the Taliban and obtain an agreement with Afghan president Hamid Karzai for a smaller US presence after the Nato mission ends in 2014.
But US public opinion has turned sharply against the war, with 60 per cent of respondents telling a Washington Post/ABC News poll it has not been worth the cost, and 54 per cent saying the US should leave before Afghan forces are ready to take over. Five years ago, 85 per cent of Republicans said the war was worth fighting; today, half say so.
Obama’s comments in a series of radio interviews showed his preoccupation with the speed of an American withdrawal. On the one hand, it was “important for us to make sure that we get out in a responsible way, so that we don’t end up having to go back in”, the president told a Pittsburgh station. “What we don’t want to do is . . . rush for the exits.”
On the other hand, Obama argued that circumstances had changed: “It’s been a decade, and you know, frankly, now that we’ve gotten bin Laden, now that we’ve weakened al-Qaeda, we’re in a stronger position to transition than we would have been two or three years ago.”
In an interview with a Denver radio station, Obama said it was “important for us just to make sure that we are not . . . in Afghanistan longer than we need to be”.
British prime minister David Cameron arrived in Washington yesterday and will meet Obama again today. In an opinion piece published by the Washington Post, the two leaders said that, “as the two largest contributors to the international mission in Afghanistan”, they were “proud of the progress our troops have made in dismantling al-Qaeda, breaking the Taliban’s momentum and training Afghan forces”.
Without referring specifically to Sunday’s massacre or to the revelation that US soldiers urinated on Taliban corpses in January and burned Korans last month, Obama and Cameron said “recent events underscore” that “this remains a difficult mission”.
They vowed to “carry on” by preparing for the Nato summit in Chicago in May, when the alliance would “determine the next phase of the transition”, which “includes shifting to a support role in advance of Afghans taking full responsibility”. They also promised “an enduring commitment so that Afghanistan is never again a haven for al-Qaeda”.
US troop levels in Afghanistan have dropped from 101,000 last summer to 91,000. Obama has promised to bring 23,000 more home by next September, leaving 68,000.
In the wake of Sunday's massacre, the White House is considering withdrawing up to 30,000 more troops by June 2013, the New York Timesreported. That is the option preferred by US national security adviser Tom Donilon. US vice-president Joe Biden, who always opposed "nation-building" in Afghanistan, wants a bigger, faster withdrawal, leaving only a small counter-terrorism force. US military commanders oppose large troop withdrawals before the end of next year.
During his 2008 election campaign, Obama defined Iraq as the “dumb war” compared to Afghanistan, which Democrats called the “good war” because the US was forced to destroy al-Qaeda after it launched the September 11th, 2001, attacks from there.
With the Afghan war in its 11th year, and US secretary of defence Leon Panetta saying there are fewer than 100 al-Qaeda operatives left in Afghanistan, the “good war” rationale looks increasingly flimsy.
Even Republican presidential hopefuls are expressing doubts. Rick Santorum faults Obama for providing a timeline for withdrawal, but now says: “We have to either make the decision to make a full commitment, which this president has not done, or we have to decide to get out, and probably get out sooner.”
Responding to Sunday’s massacre, Newt Gingrich said the US presence “is probably counterproductive” and he feared that the mission “is not doable”.