President Obama slows troop withdrawal in Afghanistan, citing security situation. Reuters.

U.S. Soldiers in Afghanistan. Yahoo/Reuters. 

President Obama has reversed policy in Afghanistan and has slowed troop withdrawals from the country due to the deteriorating security situation. Reuters. Orginally the plan was to withdraw all US troops, except those stationed at the embassy, by the end of Obama's last term in January 2017. For 2016 troops will be reduced to 10,000 while in 2017 at least 5000 will remain. The troops will be stationed in Kabul, Kandahar, Bagram and Jalalabad. The change in policy is in response to gains made by the Taliban who recently captured the city of Kunduz before withdrawing after 15 days. US troops ended their combat operations in 2014, but troops remained in the country for training and anti-terror purposes. Indeed, US special forces were involved in the recapture of Kunduz. 

My Comment:

This was fairly predictable. The war in Afghanistan is not going well. The battle for Kunduz is a symptom of a larger problem. Namely, the Afghan security forces are not ready to stand on their own. They have taken massive casualties and their morale is low. In Kunduz they greatly outnumbered the Taliban yet they still fled, much like the Iraq security forces in Mosul fled when ISIS attacked. The do not have the will to fight and there is a good chance that the only thing keeping the country in their control is support from the United States. 

If US forces were to withdraw forces completely today I have little doubt that the Taliban would take over. The country is a mess and their military is not up to snuff. Furthermore, the Taliban are motivated and are not afraid to die for their beliefs. The same can not be said for the Afghans. The only thing that gives them much backbone at all is support from American troops and airstrikes. Afghanistan doesn't have much of an air force and has no other advantage over the Taliban so it mostly comes down to the quality of the troops. And the Taliban have better troops at this point. 

Of course Afghanistan has more problems then simply having bad troops. The entire country is corrupt, and that is a major reason morale is so poor for the Afghan military. Graft is a way of life there and it's clear that the people running the country aren't competent. And the entire country is basically written on a map. There isn't any unity between the people. It's mostly loyalty to tribes and to local leaders instead of a real sense of country. 

Keeping 10,000 troops in the country won't solve any of these issues. Indeed, I don't know if anything will solve these issues at this point. But fixing Afghanistan shouldn't be the goal. The goal should be preventing the Taliban and al-Qadea from coming back. Or allowing new groups, like ISIS, to take over.  10,000 troops probably isn't enough to do that either, especially if they are there in a training role. But it may slow them down, which is all Obama really wants.

Obama is already the president that lost the Iraq War. Had we kept a few troops in that country, the fall of Mosul would have never happened. ISIS would still be a threat but they wouldn't have taken nearly as much ground and would largely be limited to Syria. I think the president realizes that this was a huge mistake and he knows if he kept to the original timeline, Afghanistan would have fallen just like much of Iraq has. This is just a cynical attempt to avoid what Obama believes to be inevitable. Whoever the next president is he or she will inherit a mess in Afghanistan.    

Is it the right choice? I don't even know anymore. Our main goal in Afghanistan was never to have a completely functioning government there. Our goal was to destroy al-Qaeda and kill Osama Bin Laden. Both of those goals have been largely accomplished. The question now is will they come back if we leave? The Taliban will likely win if we leave and we have to ask ourselves if they will do the same thing they did back before 9/11. Will they support and give shelter to terrorist groups? If they will, then we can't let them win. We also can not afford to let ISIS gain territory in Afghanistan as well. I think as long as these things are true we are going to be deeply involved in the country...