Word: mcchrystal
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...officials are watching Tehran closely. "Iran's current policies and actions do not pose a short-term threat to the mission," General Stan McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, warned in his leaked August assessment. "But Iran has the capability to threaten the mission in the future...
...that a runoff is finally in the works in Afghanistan (for an election they held in August!), the Obama administration will have to make up its mind in the next several weeks on the recommendations of the McChrystal Report, which argues for sending in 40,000 or more additional soldiers. The choice comes down to whether America wants to focus on counter-terror operations—keeping troop levels constant and instead using target bombs and drones to prevent al-Qaeda from fully reconstituting—or counter insurgency, which is what we did in Iraq and involves...
...year waging war in Afghanistan, and, depending on whose estimates you trust, a surge would cost between $10 and $40 billion all by itself. In 2008, there were 32,000 troops deployed in Afghanistan; now there are around 68,000. A troop surge on the scale that General Stanley McChrystal, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, is asking for would push us past the 100,000 mark in a war that has been going on for longer than America fought in the Civil War and World War II combined...
...McChrystal reportedly offered Obama different options graded by risk. He is said to have suggested that adding even 20,000 more to the 68,000 already committed to the fight would still run a high risk of failure, while that risk would be lowest if the White House dispatched a further 60,000 to 80,000 troops. The reinforcement number talked about in many of the press reports on Obama's dilemma - a little upward of 40,000 new troops - represents McChrystal's medium risk scenario. (Watch a video about the soldier's experience in Afghanistan...
...problem with trying to restrict troop levels and focus instead on accelerating the training of Afghan forces, as many skeptics of escalation have proposed, is that it offers the worst of both worlds. It would deny McChrystal the reinforcements he believes are essential to avoid defeat ("Resources will not win this war, but under-resourcing could lose it," says the general). But at the same time, it would do little to shield the President from criticism on the left that he is squandering American lives and treasure on an unwinnable...