Advancing the Drawdown
Wednesday, a group of high-caliber panelists gathered at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace to participate in a frank discussion on the United States’ strategy for the Afghanistan War. The panelists included the highly regarded blogger and analyst Josh Foust in conversation with former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Thomas Pickering; Afghanistan Study Group Director (and former Marine Captain) Matt Hoh with RAND Corp. Director (and former ambassador) James Dobbins); and American for Tax reform President Grover Norquist along with conservative firebrand Ann Coulter.
The panel discussions provided a wealth of insight into the global, regional, local, social, economic, and political dimensions of the conflict. The policy prescriptions laid out, even though they differed in some respects, would all be useful steps forward if they were in fact acted upon by policymakers. In the end, the panelists perspectives on the road ahead were succinctly summarized by former ambassador Pickering:
“Right time to get out? As soon as possible. Right time for negotiations? Now.”
This recommended course of action is increasingly taking on the tone of a mantra chanted by all those paying attention to the failing U.S. strategy in Afghanistan. However, when it comes to determining whether the strategy actually changes, it was the critical voices on the final panel that may carry the most weight.
This is because of the political perfect storm that was created when a Democratic president campaigned against the “war of choice” in Iraq and escalated the “war of necessity” in Afghanistan with the acquiescence of a Democratic Congress unwilling to confront the executive and an American public largely unaware that a trillion dollar unwinnable war was being fought on their behalf.
The result, as ASG co-founder Richard Vague put it in the first panel discussion, is that, “We’re locked into something that’s almost on auto-pilot at the cost of $120 billion a year…in a country whose GDP is only $16 billion. It’s out-of-balance.”
The critical leg of support for keeping that out-of-balance war in Afghanistan from tipping over is made up of conservative voters and legislators who have turned a blind eye towards the Democratic administration’s failure to produce a clear strategy that uses vital national interests as its guide.
In the final panel of the day, Grover Norquist, and Ann Coulter stepped into that void and called out conservatives who had passively accepted a war that runs directly counter to their values.As Coulter put it in her initial salvo against Republican supporters of the decade-long war in Afghanistan:
“I thought the irreducible requirements of Republicanism were being for life, small government and a strong national defense, but I guess permanent war is on the platter now, too.”
A special edition of our newsletter will be emailed Monday. This issue will highlight Coulter’s showdown with the Republican establishment that continues to support Obama’s war as she calls for conservatives to stay true to their values and take action against the failed strategy in Afghanistan.
You can watch the first two panels of the ASG / New America Foundation event, “Afghanistan War: Containing or Leveraging U.S. Power?” on C-SPAN’s website. Find the links below.
Panel 1: “The Afghanistan War: Reviewing America’s Strategic and Economic Position”
Panel 2: “Next Steps in Afghanistan: What are the Options?”
