Dear Taliban: Wait Us Out For 18 Months, Claim Victory

Love,
President Obama

It has been four months since Gen. Stanley McChrystal said, in words that reflect the military's embrace of nation building, "We've got a government in a box, ready to roll in" to Marja. It took longer than expected to reach a more inconclusive outcome than expected in that town of about 80,000, which last month McChrystal called "a bleeding ulcer." Hence the delay from spring until autumn in tackling Kandahar, with its population of perhaps 800,000. It is, he says, "more important we get it right than we get it fast."

Fast, however, is U.S. policy. In his reverent new book, "The Promise: President Obama, Year One," Jonathan Alter reconstructs the administration's deliberations about Afghanistan in autumn 2009. Vice President Biden, walking with the president to the decisive meeting with Gen. David Petraeus and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was assured by Obama that the policy of beginning a significant withdrawal in 2011 was a direct presidential order. Alter reports that Obama, whose mantra for the military was "Do not occupy what you cannot transfer" -- what you cannot soon make Afghanistan's responsibility -- said to Petraeus, "I want you to be honest with me. You can do this in 18 months?"

Petraeus: "Sir, I'm confident we can train and hand over to the ANA [Afghan National Army] in that time frame."

Obama: "If you can't do the things you say you can in 18 months, then no one is going to suggest we stay, right?"

Petraeus: "Yes, sir, in agreement."

Mullen: "Yes, sir."

So yeah, if I'm the Taliban, I've got the victory parade scheduled for 15 June 2012. After all, no one is going to suggest that we stay, right?

By: Brant