Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Editorial: Getting back to al-Qaida
Obama hopes to take care of critical business left unfinished by the U.S. diversion into Iraq.
From the RoundTable blog
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By increasing troop levels in Afghanistan, President Obama is taking a risky but realistic approach to the continuing threat presented by a resurgent Taliban and by al-Qaida, still enjoying a safe haven just across the border in western Pakistan.
You remember al-Qaida. The architects of 9/11. Intelligence sources say its leaders continue to plot attacks on the U.S. from the forbidding mountainous tribal region straddling the two countries, safely out of the way of Afghan and U.S. forces.
Critics of Obama's increased commitment of U.S. troops fear a new military quagmire, one the new president can call his own even as he continues to extricate the nation from its long and costly war in Iraq.
As a matter of national security, though, Obama can neither concede the area to Islamic extremists, nor allow its security and political and economic viability to continue to slide toward utter chaos. Yet, reassuringly, he has stated plainly that he will not engage in a blank-check, "stay-the-course" war policy that would allow regional players to maintain the status quo, confident that U.S. blood and money would ensure their own survival.
With lessons learned from Iraq, Obama laid out a plan that seeks to strengthen Afghanistan as a self-governing nation and -- most critically and most difficult to achieve -- to encourage Pakistan to exert control over its lawless tribal regions and oust the terrorists.
The president spoke to leaders in both countries before unveiling his plan last week, and they reacted positively. So did NATO allies and, at home, some congressional leaders from both sides of the aisle. Support in Congress will be crucial because, along with more troops, Obama wants to send billions more dollars in aid to Pakistan.
It will not be sent, though, without strings attached.
Obama has yet to outline what benchmarks for progress his plan will set. The goal, though, is stability -- which will require prosperity -- in a region the world cannot dare forget.
