Now that President Obama has decided to slow the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, he and the new Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani, have an obligation to prove that the additional American investment will be worth it. It will not be easy, and it may not be possible. For more than a decade, the Afghan government has stubbornly resisted taking most of the political, economic and military steps needed to put the country on a firm footing.
Mr. Obama’s decision to keep 9,800 troops in Afghanistan at least through 2015 is a change from his previous plan to cut that force in half by the end of the year. Administration officials said it was a response to the expected resurgence of the Taliban in the spring fighting season and the need to continue training and assisting the struggling Afghan security forces.
The decision means that two military bases from which the Central Intelligence Agency and military special forces conduct secret drone strikes and other operations — in Kandahar, in southern Afghanistan, and in Jalalabad, in the east — will stay open.
After the first White House meeting between the two presidents on Tuesday, Mr. Obama said at a news conference that he still planned to honor his commitment to reduce the force to about 1,000 when he leaves office in 2017. With America headed into a presidential election campaign in which Republicans are already taking a tougher line on security issues in general, Mr. Obama’s decision to slow the pace of the withdrawal should not be an excuse for keeping troops in Afghanistan indefinitely.
Mr. Ghani, an American-educated, former World Bank official who is widely perceived as more serious and responsible than his erratic predecessor, Hamid Karzai, made a convincing argument that delaying the withdrawal would give him security support while he pursued economic, political and military goals.
His thanks to American troops who served in his country and to American taxpayers, who are still footing a hefty bill, was especially well received during a speech to Congress. During a visit to The Times, he said the result of his Washington meetings was that “we have been given space and time to demonstrate that what we’re saying can actually be implemented.”
The challenges cannot be overstated. One is an Afghan Army that will be unable to defend the country if it continues to lose personnel through desertions, discharges and an unsustainable level of combat deaths. Although authorized to employ 195,000 people, the force lost 17,000 troops and civilian employees last year.
Another challenge is endemic corruption. Over the years, the United States has poured billions of dollars into Afghanistan to underwrite the government, the military and scores of other programs, with untold millions siphoned off by Afghans to buy homes in Dubai and millions more wasted. To get at these problems, Mr. Ghani has fired 62 generals and centralized billions of dollars in procurement deals under his purview, but he still confronts huge obstacles in cleaning up the bureaucracy. All through the war years, it was apparent that military action alone would never bring peace. Afghanistan needs a government that can bring jobs, education, health care and justice to its people and undercut the lure of the Taliban. Mr. Ghani has made a more serious, coherent effort than Mr. Karzai in pursuing political reconciliation with the Taliban, which even American generals agree is the only way to end the conflict.
Although there is little sign that talks with the militants could make progress anytime soon, Mr. Ghani has taken an important step by trying to improve relations with Pakistan, whose lawless border region has long provided a sanctuary for militants who have targeted Afghan and American forces. He described the stakes in remarkably blunt terms, saying the problem was not making peace with the Taliban so much as “peace between Pakistan and Afghanistan.”
Mr. Ghani has big visions. He told Congress he aims for the country to be self-sustaining, and weaned of international assistance that now is central to the economy, within this decade. He talked of Afghanistan’s being an Asian hub crossed by pipelines, rail lines and modern telecom and banking services. Those are worthy goals, but they are still based mostly on hope.
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