Nolan Miller, a professor at Urbana-Champaign and I wrote a prospective op-ed which we submitted to the New York Times.  It was written around the time Obama made his big speech about Afghanistan and the date he was suggesting for starting to draw down forces.  You’ll find it below.  After we submitted, there were some op-eds the Times itself published – they did not accept our’s.    Check out this one after reading our attempt:

The President’s long-awaited Afghanistan policy has been revealed: a “surge” of 30,000 more troops with an “exit ramp” beginning in July 2011.  Leading Republicans praised the surge but condemned the preordained departure date , claiming that the Taliban will lie low and reemerge when we leave.

The Obama administration says that the Republicans are missing the bigger picture: the Afghan government needs to step up, and if we give them a “blank check”, they will never do their job. Obama says that the withdrawal date is “locked in” and that our hard deadline forces Karzai to build a security force rather than rely on us to spend our own precious resources and lives on his behalf.   And the 18-month surge gives us the breathing room to help Karzai man and train his army.

However, other administration officials, most notably Secretaries Clinton and Gates and General McChrystal are singing a different, more nuanced, song.   They say that although July 2011 is the expected turning point in Afghanistan, when we can begin to leave without risking another backslide, this date is flexible.  The President’s strategy is to begin leaving only if conditions on the grounds are favorable. According to McChrystal, “We will not decrease coalition forces without the increase of Afghan national security forces capability.”  In other words, we have initiated an open-ended surge, and we will stay there for at least eighteen more months. If Karzai hears this message, he will think withdrawal is not locked in, and he would be right to interpret it as, if not a blank check, also not a last chance.

For an administration that is known for staying on message, this statement on a critical policy is remarkably muddied.  That is, of course, unless the muddied message is the message.

The Obama Afghanistan strategy needs to walk a fine line, playing to multiple constituencies both at home and abroad.  The domestic audiences are clear.  Abroad, Obama needs Karzai to believe that this is a make-or-break point for him, and that we won’t be there to back him up indefinitely.  Hence the need to be “locked in” to a firm withdrawal date.

The target of the other half of the mixed message is not the Afghan government, or even the Taliban, but the third and most difficult player facing the Americans: Pakistan.  Once the U.S. ramps up its efforts in Afghanistan, the Taliban will undoubtedly run to the mountains of Pakistan, where they will join their old friend Osama bin Laden.  So, we will have to rely on Pakistan to perform the second part of the pincer movement that cuts off our enemies.

Pakistan has always had a complex relationship with the Taliban and Al Qaeda.  Fanatics provide a ready supply of volunteers for attacks on India, and Pakistan is reluctant to turn on its former allies.  And if Karzai falls, their old allies the Taliban will be back in power and they can go back to living in relative harmony.  To persuade Pakistan to turn on its allies who are our enemies, they have to think we are in Afghanistan until the Taliban threat is eliminated. The quickest way to get us out of the region is to give us what we want, and what we want is a stable Afghanistan and the elimination of the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

So, Obama is trying to send one message to Karzai (“Our departure is locked in”) and another to Pakistan (“We are here as long as it takes, so help us or else”).  Muddling these two messages together is as confusing to them as it is to us.  Worse, there is a danger that each hears the wrong message.  If Karzai hears we are flexible and Pakistan hears that departure is locked in, neither will help us.  And the Taliban can run across the border and wait and see which of these two strategies Obama will actually employ in 2011.

At best, Obama’s strategy is to send two quite contradictory messages at the same time and have each side hear the message he wants them to hear. At worst, it is a compromise of different views within his administration.  In the confusion, the wrong message may get through to each side and American soldiers will have to pick up the slack left by a confusing policy.  Then, Obama will regret not choosing one clear transparent strategy where at least one side, either Karzai or Pakistan, would have been forced to step up.