In announcing on Monday that he would nominate General Martin Dempsey to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, US President Barack Obama concluded a broad reshuffling of his national security team just as the administration is heading into a new debate over bringing US troops home from Afghanistan.
Dempsey, who if confirmed by the Senate would take over from Admiral Mike Mullen as the nation’s highest ranking military officer, has not taken a public position on how many troops should be withdrawn starting in July, the date set by the president for beginning to reduce the US military presence in Afghanistan.
DEBATE
Photo: EPA
However, he will be walking into a debate that has been simmering within the administration for two years. On one side are those who want to maintain troop levels as much as possible and to continue a counterinsurgency strategy that emphasizes clearing key regions of Taliban fighters and helping the Afghan government build stable institutions.
On the other are those who want to focus on counterterrorism, using fewer troops to carry out targeted strikes on al-Qaeda and Taliban forces.
Obama gave no hint of which way he was leaning, saying only that he expected Dempsey, now the army chief, to present him with a full range of options on how to begin bringing US troops home.
“I’ll be looking to you, and the rest of the joint chiefs, for what I value most in my advisers, your honest, unvarnished advice, and the full range of options, especially when it comes to our most solemn obligation, protecting the lives of our brave men and women in uniform,” Obama said to the general in a ceremony in the Rose Garden.
As chairman of the joint chiefs, Dempsey will become the president’s senior military adviser, working alongside CIA Director Leon Panetta, who is in line to become US secretary of defense when Robert Gates retires late next month, and General David Petraeus, a strong proponent of the counterinsurgency strategy and the commander in charge of carrying it out, who will take over from Panetta at the CIA.
The president chose Dempsey over General James Cartwright, who was seen as a supporter of the more limited counterterrorism approach advocated by US Vice President Joe Biden and a number of other administration aides. In selecting Dempsey, Obama was in some ways bowing to the preferences of Mullen, whose term expires on Sept. 30, and Gates, who were said by colleagues to be unhappy that Cartwright had provided advice to the White House during the troop-buildup debate in 2009 without keeping them in the loop.
QUICK WITHDRAWAL
The debate over the scale and pace of any troop withdrawal will take place against evolving domestic and foreign policy considerations. Already, many Democrats in Congress, and even a few Republicans, are beginning to call for a quicker pullout in light of the killing of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden this month and the growing fiscal pressures on the government. Those calls could strengthen the hand of aides like Biden, who advocated a tighter, more focused mission to begin with.
In addition, US officials have begun backing their Afghan counterparts in negotiations with the Afghan Taliban, as part of the effort to speed up a political reconciliation. Those efforts have yet to bear fruit, but military officials say they hope bin Laden’s death will force the Taliban to reconsider their position.
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