Obama 2012 campaign promise: End the war in Afghanistan
Sources:
White House, “Remarks by the President to Military and Civilian Personnel at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst,” Dec. 15, 2014
ISAF, “ISAF Joint Command ends mission, makes history,” Dec. 8, 2014
NATO, “NATO-led Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan,” Dec. 18, 2014
NATO, “NATO’s commitment to Afghanistan after 2014,” December 2014
U.S. Mission to NATO, “NATO’s New Chapter in Afghanistan,” accessed Dec. 23, 2014
New York Times, “Taliban Push Into Afghan Districts That U.S. Had Secured,” Dec. 22, 2014
Los Angeles Times, “What lies ahead for U.S. military in Afghanistan, Iraq,” Dec. 29, 2014
Reuters, “Prediction: Obama will decide to keep U.S. troops in Afghanistan beyond 2016,” Dec. 22, 2014
Phone interview, retired Lt. Gen. James Dubik, senior fellow at the Institute for the Study of War, Dec. 17, 2014
Email interview, Brookings senior fellow Michael O’Hanlon, Nov. 24, 2014
Email interview, NSC spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan, Nov. 24, 2014
Email interview, Max Boot, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, Dec. 16, 2014
During his 2012 re-election campaign, President Barack Obama pledged to “end the war in Afghanistan in 2014.” As straightforward as that might sound, disentangling U.S. involvement in Afghanistan remains a complicated proposition.
On Dec. 28, 2014, a ceremony symbolically marked the end of the combat mission.
“For more than 13 years, ever since nearly 3,000 innocent lives were taken from us on 9/11, our nation has been at war in Afghanistan,” Obama said in a statement. “Now, thanks to the extraordinary sacrifices of our men and women in uniform, our combat mission in Afghanistan is ending, and the longest war in American history is coming to a responsible conclusion.”
The formal end of the combat mission happened because of newly elected leadership for the Afghanistan government, which ratified the Bilateral Security Agreement and NATO Status of Forces Agreement.
About 10,800 American troops will stay in Afghanistan in 2015 — down from 38,000 at the start of 2014. Those remaining troops will continue missions focused on counter-terrorism and training. (Obama had said in 2012 he expected some troops to remain past 2014 for those tasks.)
The White House said it plans to reduce remaining troops by about half by the end of 2015, and Obama wants all troops out by the end of 2016, when he leaves the Oval Office.
A NATO-led mission, Operation Resolute Support, will begin in January 2015. It is not designed to get involved in combat. Instead, troops are to advise, train and assist Afghan institutions and forces, who in turn will be tasked with assuming all security responsibility in the country.
Experts told us that it’s important to remember that just because America’s combat mission will end in Afghanistan doesn’t mean that the conflict is over. The situation in Afghanistan isn’t entirely stable — Afghan security forces continue to butt heads with insurgents.
Retired Lt. Gen. James Dubik, a senior fellow at the Institute for the Study of War, said the United States. has “made a significant intellectual error in equating withdrawing from wars from ending wars.” He compared the upcoming withdrawal from Afghanistan to the 2011 withdrawal from Iraq, where the United States has recently been drawn back into conflict.
Meanwhile, in a Reuters column, Brookings Institution senior fellow Michael O’Hanlon said he doubts that Obama will withdraw the remaining troops troops by 2016.
“Beyond leaving in jeopardy the U.S. effort to stabilize and bring democracy to Afghanistan, this policy would deprive the United States of bases that it uses to fly drones and launch commando raids in the region — in eastern Afghanistan or western Pakistan — against al-Qaida targets,” O’Hanlon wrote.
“In 2015, Obama will have to figure all this out.”
And even as the United States steps back from the conflict, there will be an exception for the use of force: American troops will assist in “targeting the remnants of al-Qaida.”
“The use of force by U.S. personnel in Afghanistan will be limited to circumstances in which the use of force is necessary to execute our two narrow post-2014 missions,” National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan told PolitiFact.
So while Obama has gone a long way to meeting his promise, we don’t feel it’s appropriate to gloss over the complexities of the Afghanistan endgame. Several thousand troops remain, and they are authorized to continue “targeting the remnants of al-Qaida.” This promise accomplishes some of what Obama said he would do, but it’s too early to say the promise has been substantially kept.
For now, we see it as partially kept and so rate it Compromise.
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