The Worst Change Obama Could Ask For (RUSSIA)

President Barack Obama has explained his economic recovery program in some detail to the American people, but he could not do the same for his Afghan policy. His announcement that an additional 17,000 troops are to be sent to Afghanistan -- an almost 50 percent increase over the number already serving there -- was made abruptly and with little explanation of how their deployment figures into any greater U.S. strategy. The president cited the need to stabilize the deteriorating security situation before the Afghan presidential elections scheduled for late August.

Obama's Afghan policy is still a work in progress, but he does want to receive all of the reviews and recommendations before the NATO summit in early April. He has promised to emphasize diplomatic and developmental approaches in addition to fighting forces. Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee in late January, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that the new administration's goals, more modest than former President George W. Bush's commitment to regional democratization, focused on "an Afghan people who do not provide a safe haven for al-Qaida, reject the rule of the Taliban and support the legitimate government that they have elected and in which they have a stake." Given the lethal intractability of Afghanistan, those goals don't seem particularly modest.

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