UK's New Afghan Tactic: Give Appearance Of Exit Strategy

By Steve Hynd

With British public opinion now overwhelmingly against the occupation of Afghanistan following the deaths of five UK soldiers at the hands of an Afghan policeman last week, Prime Minister Gordon Brown has taken only seven days to do his own strategic review. Unsurprisingly, he's come up with a plan that gives the illusion of progress, and of heading for the exit.

Brown wants to begin handing over districts in the troublesome Helmand province to Afghan security forces, with at least two handed over by the crucial deadline of midsummer next year and the rest following for completion by 2014. I say the middle of 2010 is crucial because that's when the British general election will be and Brown knows he's already behind against his Tory rival. If he can't show at least the appearance of an exit strategy working by then, he's sunk, and he knows it.

But, given the many obvious shortcomings of Afghan security forces, the notion of handing parts of Helmand is ludicrous on the face of it. Which means that U.S. forces, probably surge forces from Obama's coming escalation, will need to take up the plentiful slack.

U.S. and U.K. officials may have denied reports that the U.S. military was going to accomodate Brown's electoral worries by moving British troops out of dangerous areas, but in practical terms it's difficult to see how this new strategy is different from that.

Comments

[BJ Bjornson]

Just to add to the fun, the Canada is supposed to withdraw its forces by July 2011, though the Canadian government is trying to build in some wiggle room regarding what they meant by "ending the combat mission". Granted, only 2,800 troops, but its quite likely they'd still need to be replaced somehow.
http://www.cbc.ca/politics/story/2009/11/05/afghanistan-withdraw.html