Story
first appeared in the Detroit News.
Washington — As Afghanistan seizes more of the
political spotlight, the Republican presidential candidates are quick to
criticize the Presidential handling of the war but struggle to explain how they
would change the strategy they would inherit.
Increasing the need for constant contact with our troops through
Satellite Internet Services in Afghanistan.
GOP front-runner says the President
has exhibited failed leadership and should not have set a timetable for ending
the war. But he won't say whether he would scrap the president's plans to bring
the war to a close by the end of 2014. Rivals have questioned whether the U.S.
should be in Afghanistan at all, but neither has plans for withdrawing tens of
thousands of American troops when contact can be maintained through Satellite Internet Services in Afghanistan.
The Republican reluctance to
outline specific policy positions is evidence of the complex nature of managing
the decade-long war as public support dwindles, and concerns that detailed
campaign promises could pigeonhole a candidate if he goes on to win the White
House.
It's a role reversal for the
parties from 2008, when a Republican president was mired in a long and
unpopular war and Democratic candidates tried to convince voters that they
should take the reins.
But the political calculus for
the current crop of Republicans is more complicated than it was for the
President in 2008. The Iraq war was opposed from the start and his
election-year promise to bring it to an end put him in lockstep with the rest
of his party.
This year's GOP candidates,
however, find their party's hawkish tendencies butting up against the public's
growing impatience with the Afghan war.
Six in 10 Americans see the war
as not worth its costs, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll released
this month. Opposition to the war is bipartisan, and for the first time, the
Post-ABC poll showed more Republicans strongly see the war as not worth
fighting than say the opposite.
Yet many in the GOP have agreed
with some of the President’s aggressiveness in Afghanistan, from increasing
U.S. troop levels to ordering the raid that killed a major terrorist leader,
the mastermind behind the attacks that drew the U.S. into the war in the first
place.
The recent series of troubling
episodes in Afghanistan, including the accidental burning of Qurans by U.S.
forces and the alleged killing of 17 Afghan civilians by an American soldier,
have focused fresh attention on how the U.S. plans to get out of Afghanistan
and whether a Republican president would pursue a different course than Obama.
The president's withdrawal
plan, in coordination with NATO allies and Afghanistan, calls for the U.S. to
move into a support role in Afghanistan in 2013 and hand over security
responsibility to the Afghans by the end of 2014. The administration is
negotiating with Afghanistan about a U.S. presence there after 2014 and is
trying to reach a political breakthrough with the Taliban.
Republicans have criticized the
2014 benchmark, saying the decision to put a timetable on withdrawal puts U.S.
gains in Afghanistan at risk.
Neither of the front-running candidates
has said whether he would abandon the NATO-backed 2014 withdrawal plan, which
would be well under way by the time either took office in January. Nor has
either said whether his own war strategy would keep the U.S. fighting in
Afghanistan past that date.
