Obama Won’t Use Troops to Save Afghan Hellhole (Drones, Maybe)

[Feuer Frei!]

The biggest news out of President Obamas Afghanistan speech isnt the 10,000 troops hes withdrawing this year. Its what Obama will and wont do with the forces hes leaving behind. Namely: the president wont send the remainder of the surge troops into eastern Afghanistan, which has become the countrys most buck-wild region. Its part of a new attempt to put the uniformed military on a much tighter leash than it had in Afghanistan or Iraq. Welcome a new phase of the war, micromanaged from the White House, and heavy on the killer robots.
Heres what the wars going to look like instead from July 2011 to 2014, when the Afghans are supposed to take over combat: drones, drones, training Afghans, commando raids, and drones. The military build on its momentum in the southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, Obama aides say. But outside of that, this is going to be a counterterrorism strategy with a lot of troops.

The next fighting season is going to be about consolidating gains, not necessarily moving to other parts of the country, a senior administration official who would only speak on background tells Danger Room. And its going to be about transitioning and partnering, not necessarily the U.S. and ISAF [NATO's International Security Assistance Force] bearing the brunt of the burden.
Thats a big pushback against a move the military wanted to make back into eastern Afghanistan, the central front of the war until 2009. Last week, the Washington Post confidently reported that the military command was eyeing the east next. Not if the White House has anything to say about it.
Eastern Afghanistan didnt enjoy the fruits of either of Obamas troop surges. While Generals Stanley McChrystal and David Petraeus focused on southern Afghanistan, al-Qaidas allies in the Haqqani Network, based over the Pakistani border in North Waziristan, drove up violence in the east, as Danger Rooms David Axe personally experienced this spring. There were nearly 900 insurgent attacks in March 2011, nearly double the assaults in March 2010.
The east is clearly the most dangerous part of the country now, says retired Lt. Gen. David Barno, a former Afghanistan commander.

But it wont be mass numbers of troops wholl confront it. Itll be flying robots and commandos. We have a capability in the east to target the Taliban and the Haqqani [Network] in the east, the official says. That is: drones and Special Operations Forces. The war in eastern Afghanistan will resemble the war in Pakistan.
Gen. John Allen, whom Obama tapped to command the war, better know what hes in for. Hell have a degree of flexibility over how to cut 10,000 troops this year and 23,000 by September 2012. (Why, thats right in time for an election!) But Obama pointedly did not say in his speech that withdrawals will proceed as conditions on the ground merit his allowance to Petraeus for preparing for the initial withdrawals, as well as to his commanders in Iraq.


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