Obama’s war strategy shift has few takers

The disturbing lack of coherent long-term aims for the American troops in Afghanistan have been made frighteningly clear again in a new autobiography by the former secretary of defence Robert Gates who served under George W Bush and continued in the first Obama administration. Regarded as a serious professional in the defence and security field, Gates offers grudging respect for Obama’s political skills, is damning about the vacillation of Vice-President Joe Biden, and is effusive about then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Gates describes how the war in Afghanistan was neglected and under-resourced in the Bush administration, and how Obama adopted a new strategy which Gates described as “breathtaking in its ambition”, as he moved to disrupt terrorist networks in Afghanistan and Pakistan, promoting a more effective Afghan government, ending Pakistan’s support for terrorist groups and working to reduce enmity between Pakistan and India. Gates is damning about this shift saying that “a strong, democratic, and more or less honest and competent central government in Afghanistan was a fantasy. The US goal should be limited to hammering the Taliban”.