Republicans have vowed to increase their oversight if they win control of either or both chambers of Congress next Tuesday, and say they will want to know more about Obama’s plan for the endgame in Afghanistan.
Any sharpened congressional oversight would come as the administration scrambles to show progress in the nine-year-old war.
Some observers here believe that, as it now stands, the White House may attempt to marginalize the National Security Council-led assessment of the war that’s due this December and keep it low key. But if Republicans gain congressional control, observers suggest, they will push to discover the administration’s thinking on the war and make it public.
Politicos think Republicans are likely to launch a push to weaken the July 2011 deadline to begin withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, as well as seek assurances that he would be willing to send in more troops if Gen. David Petraeus, his commander there, asks for them.
Republicans suspect that the administration is already planning to narrow the scope of its strategy in Afghanistan, limiting the number of troops that could be sent there and planning what could be a substantial drawdown beginning next summer.
This despite the fact that President Obama has chosen to be substantially more aggressive than his predecessor on Afghanistan, which some analysts believe is unlikely to yield a major foreign policy success, unless that success is a negotiated settlement with the Taleban.
Interestingly, if Obama’s goal is to appear strong on national security while regaining the center, some observers say Afghanistan offers the least attractive venue. His choices are negotiation, which would reinforce his image as an accommodationist in foreign policy, or continued war, which is not particularly new territory.
A negotiated settlement could be portrayed by the Republicans as capitulation rather than triumph. But, if Obama continues on the current course in Afghanistan, some observers say he needs to avoid being seen as plodding down an old path and not pioneering a new one.
Some experts believe Obama could deploy even more forces into Afghanistan, but say he must avoid the risk of looking like Lyndon Johnson in 1967, putting troops before the enemy without a clear plan.
He could also, of course, create a massive crisis with Pakistan, but it would be extremely unlikely that such an effort would end well, given the situation of unease in Afghanistan.
