Obama’s Exit Strategy – by Jacob Laksin | FrontPage Magazine

Obama’s Exit Strategy – by Jacob Laksin | FrontPage Magazine: "Is Barack Obama preparing to abandon Afghanistan? As the president nears his long-awaited decision on the 40,000 troops requested by NATO commander General Stanley McChrystal, that seems to be the grim message emerging from the administration.

The most high-profile signal that the White House may be leaning against sending additional troops comes, ironically, from an administration figure who reportedly favors the troop increase: U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry. In a series of classified diplomatic cables to the administration leaked to the press this week, Eikenberry evidently expressed serious reservations about the wisdom of sending troops before addressing corruption and incompetence in Afghanistan’s government.

Eikenberry’s message has been interpreted as a way of putting pressure on President Hamid Karzai, whose victory this month in a disputed and fraud-plagued national election has undermined the legitimacy of the central government and fueled the Taliban insurgency. Yet it is equally plausible that, intentionally or not, Eikenberry’s warning could serve to immunize from the administration from criticism should the president choose to reject General McChrystal’s request for more troops. That possibility appears all the more likely when one considers that Eikenberry himself is an Army general whose résumé includes a stint as commander of U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

But while Eikenberry himself is said to support a troop surge, he may be a minority within the administration. Vice President Biden has made no secret of his preference for a dramatically scaled back mission that reduces the number of American troops inside Afghanistan. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has long been a skeptic of expanding the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan, citing concerns about the U.S. “footprint becoming too big” and American being seen as an occupation force."