The U.S. needs to keep troops in Afghanistan - David Petraeus and Michael O'Hanlon

For a leader who has been criticized for trying to rush out of wars to satisfy campaign promises, President Obama has been relatively resolute in Afghanistan. To be sure, he reduced U.S. forces there faster than some (including us) believed optimal starting in July 2011 — but only after havingtripled the number of troops there during the first two years of his presidency. And the drawdown did not begin until he worked with coalition partners at the 2010 NATO Summit in Lisbon to extend the mission from 2011 to 2014, a horizon extended again last year. Beyond that, while he declared an end to the NATO combat mission in Afghanistan at the end of last year, he also authorized Americans to continue to participate in numerous difficult and dangerous operations, including counterterrorism activities in support of Afghan forces, when needed. Some 10,000 U.S. troops continue the fight in support of what is principally now an Afghan-led and Afghan-dominated mission.

Unfortunately, having displayed such patience, the president is now assuming that neither his successor nor the American public has the desire — or stomach — to continue even a modest U.S. effort in Afghanistan after 2016. Obama’s plan is to remove all operational combat forces from the country by the end of his tenure. Only a small training mission and embassy guard operation would continue. This plan raises considerable questions.

The right approach is for Obama to protect our investment in Afghanistan and to hand off to his successor military forces and tools that will still be critically needed in 2017 and beyond. We can schedule an end to our role in that nation’s conflict, but we cannot schedule an end to the war there or an end to the threat from al-Qaeda, the Islamic State or other extremist elements of the global jihad. Moreover, the Afghan political leadership and public overwhelmingly want us to stay.

We went to Afghanistan for a compelling reason: to ensure that Afghanistan never again served as a sanctuary for al-Qaeda, as it did when the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were planned there under the Taliban. The importance of that mission continues.
- Read More at Washingtonpost

The U.S. needs to keep troops in Afghanistan