Gates ha dubbi sulla strategia USA per l’Afghanistan – Mentre Obama riesamina le opzioni, il segretario alla Difesa dubita che il piano di aumento delle truppe fermi i talebani
● Nella discussione con i suoi consiglieri sulla strategia per guerra afghana, il presidente Usa, Obama, è apparso più preoccupato per il livello di rischio per gli USA che per la stabilità in Afghanistan.
● Il segretario USA alla Difesa, Gates dubita che la lotta contro i ribelli (“contro-insorgenza”) sia ancora la tattica giusta contro i talebani che stanno rafforzandosi nel N e O Afghanistan. Se la situazione continua a peggiorare nel N e nell’O neppure 40mila soldati aggiuntivi basteranno a proteggere gli Afghani sul terreno.
o Già segretario alla Difesa nell’Amministrazione rep. di J. W. Bush, Gates si è rivelato uno dei consiglieri più fidati di Obama;
o Gates è stato a lungo un dei maggiori fautori della contro-insorgenza; a maggio inviò in Afghanistan il gen. McChrystal per la sua “abilità unica nella contro-insorgenza”. Di recente si era detto disposto ad aumentare il numero dei soldati, come chiesto dal gen. McChrystal.
o Da tempo Gates esprime dubbi sull’opportunità di inviare grandi contingenti aggiuntivi di soldati in Afghanistan; un’eccessiva presenza militare occidentale potrebbe galvanizzare nuova opposizione armata agli USA e alleati, attirando le forze USA in un conflitto simile alla guerriglia anti-Urss degli anni 1980.
● La contro-insorgenza rimane la strategia preferita dai più alti militari del Pentagono; hanno appoggiato la proposta di McChrystal l’ammiraglio Mike Mullen, presidente dello stato maggiore unito e il gen. David Petraeus, comandante sovrintendente delle guerre di Irak e Afghanistan.
● Il vice-presidente Joe Biden ed altri alti funzionari dell’Amministrazione vogliono sostituire la strategia della contro-insorgenza con una strategia del contro-terrorismo, più centrata sull’utilizzo di droni e di piccole squadre delle forze speciali contro i maggiori leader di al-Qaeda e talebani.
● Gates continua a essere contrario a questa strategia.
Gates Doubts U.S.’s Afghan Strategy – As Obama Reviews Options, Defense Secretary Worries Manpower-Intensive Plan Won’t Stop Taliban
By YOCHI J. DREAZEN
– President Barack Obama met with senior counselors for three hours Wednesday to launch his review of Afghan war strategy, amid indications that his defense secretary — the key link between the White House and the military — is among those undecided about the right approach.
– Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the senior U.S. commander in Kabul, is advocating a manpower-intensive counterinsurgency strategy that focuses on protecting the Afghan populace rather than hunting individual militants. He submitted a classified assessment over the weekend calling for up to 40,000 U.S. reinforcements.
– Mr. Obama met with senior military officials, diplomats and Cabinet members Wednesday as part of the review, which White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said was designed to "poke and prod" potential new approaches to the conflict.
– The discussion focused on the political and security situation on the ground, according to an administration official, with military commanders detailing the gains made by the insurgency and top diplomats discussing the Afghan election results that were marred by fraud claims.
– Mr. Obama focused his questioning on the current threat posed by al Qaeda and whether a resurgent Taliban would give al Qaeda leaders a new haven to regroup, the official said, which could indicate Mr. Obama is more concerned about the status of a threat to the U.S. than overall stability in Afghanistan.
– In an interview Wednesday, a senior defense official said that Defense Secretary Robert Gates now worries that counterinsurgency might no longer be a viable approach for countering the Taliban violence roiling once-stable parts of north and west Afghanistan.
– Mr. Gates, a Bush administration holdover, has emerged as one of Mr. Obama’s most trusted advisers, so his views carry significant weight in the deliberations.
– "Even 40,000 more troops don’t give you enough boots on the ground to protect the Afghans if the north and west continue to deteriorate," the official said. "That may argue for a different approach."
– A shift in Mr. Gates’s thinking would be particularly striking because he has long been a major advocate of counterinsurgency, which is credited with helping to sharply reduce Iraq’s once-unrelenting violence.
– When Mr. Gates first announced that he was sending Gen. McChrystal to Kabul in May, he specifically cited the commander’s "unique skill set in counterinsurgency" as a main reason for the selection.
– At the same time, Mr. Gates has long been skeptical of sending large amounts of additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan, warning that an expanded Western military footprint could galvanize new armed opposition to the U.S. and its allies and draw U.S. forces into a conflict akin to the guerrilla war against the Soviet Union[e] in the 1980s.
The defense chief had signaled recently that he is amenable to boosting troop levels, strengthening Gen. McChrystal’s case for the additional forces.
– It is far from clear what strategy additional forces will be asked to implement on the ground in Afghanistan. Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell told reporters Wednesday that Mr. Gates was "undecided about what the appropriate tack should be going forward in Afghanistan."
– "His thinking on this is evolving," Mr. Morrell said. "I don’t think he has come to a final determination on what he believes to be the appropriate course going forward." He said in an interview that Mr. Gates has been a strong advocate of counterinsurgency but wanted to join the rest of Mr. Obama’s war cabinet in discussing all possible options.
– Counterinsurgency remains the preferred strategy of the Pentagon’s top uniformed military officers.
o Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Gen. David Petraeus, the commander overseeing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, have both endorsed Gen. McChrystal’s approach to the conflict publicly in recent days. Adm. Mullen told a Senate panel earlier this month that he also endorsed sending more troops to Afghanistan.
– But the political calculus over the war has been scrambled, partly by the leak of a grim assessment of the war that Gen. McChrystal submitted last month. The commander said the U.S. and its allies had 12 months to reverse the Taliban’s momentum and warned that the U.S.-led mission would "likely result in failure" without more forces.
– Vice President Joe Biden and some other senior administration officials want to replace the counterinsurgency approach with a "counterterror" strategy that focuses more narrowly on using drones and small teams of Special Operations forces to kill senior al Qaeda and Taliban figures.
Mr. Gates remains opposed to such a strategy, according to Mr. Morrell, who said the defense chief "does not think that is a path to success in Afghanistan."