This week I want to applaud President Obama for his dealings over what America should do in Afghanistan. While I have no idea if his new strategy for the country will succeed, I think he has made the best and most moral decision possible under the circumstances. I can already hear the angry protests from my left-leaning friends here in Ireland and back in the States. But I have my reasons.
To begin with, I think one has to put the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan in the proper perspective. As far as I’m concerned, the invasion of Iraq was both wrong and immoral because it placed the lives of both American military and Iraqi civilians at risk, despite Iraq being in no way a security threat to the United States or its neighbours. The only moral underpinning cited by the Bush administration was that Saddam Hussein was a ruthless and murderous dictator.
Okay, I’ll buy that. But if that’s the only reason, then what about Kim Jong Il in North Korea? Or Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe? Or the dictators in control of Sudan and at least half a dozen other countries?
In the case of North Korea, we knew for a fact that they had nuclear weapons and missiles capable of delivering them, while we had only unsubstantiated – and false – speculation regarding Saddam Hussein’s hostile capabilities. That was the main reason why I as a Republican, and Barack Obama as a Democrat, opposed the decision to invade Iraq from the very start of the war.
Since most Americans have now come to the same conclusion about the Iraq War, the easiest decision for Obama to make would be to pull out completely and simply blame George W Bush for whatever happens. But as I’ve said many times over the last three years, as much as I was opposed to the Iraq war, I believe just as strongly that America has a moral obligation to try to clean up the mess we made before we withdraw.
However, Afghanistan is not Iraq, and the circumstances that precipitated our decision to invade that country were markedly different as well. Afghanistan and its Taliban regime were a security threat to the United States and other nations because they provided a safe haven for al-Qaeda terrorists to train those bent on killing innocent civilians in the west.
The Taliban were and still are just as ruthless and murderous as Saddam Hussein in terms of how they treat the Afghan people, but that was not the reason why America invaded Afghanistan, nor should it have been.
Unfortunately, following the successful overthrow of the Taliban regime, President Bush turned his attention away from Afghanistan instead of devoting the resources needed to rebuild that country’s infrastructure and institutions, thus bringing some semblance of order and stability to the land and its war-weary people.
Once again, President Obama can’t undo the mistakes made by his predecessor. Unlike President Bush, Obama and most other Americans have no illusions about ‘winning’ the war in Afghanistan. But we do have a moral obligation to try to bring enough order and stability to the country, so that we can leave with some hope that the citizens of Afghanistan will be able to maintain it on their own after we’re gone.
That’s why I believe President Obama’s decision to use another ‘surge’ of American troops in Afghanistan was the most moral decision he could have made under the circumstances. But there are other reasons, too…
Charles Laffiteau is a US Republican from Dallas, Texas who is pursuing a PhD in International Relations and lectures on Contemporary US Business & Society at DCU
