With the troop withdrawal date of July 2011, Secretary Clinton said, the U.S. administration is sending a "message of urgency" to Afghans and their government to go after the Taliban and al Qaeda more effectively. She made the remark in an interview yesterday with CBS's Katie Couric. When asked by Couric, "Why start withdrawing U.S. troops just 18 months after the surge begins?", Clinton's response was:
Well, I think there's been considerable misunderstanding about what the president said and what he meant. He said [Tuesday] night that our goal is to begin transferring responsibility for security and hopefully being able to bring some of our troops home starting in July 2011. But this is going to be done in a responsible way and based on the conditions as they are assessed. And we want to send a message of urgency to the people and government of Afghanistan and others that they have to be part of making sure that we go after al Qaeda and their allies, which include a lot of the Afghanistan Taliban."
When Couric followed up by asking, "So is this a not-so-subtle message to Hamid Karzai that he better step up to the plate because the U.S. will not be there forever?", Clinton answered:
Well, I think that this is a very clear message to President Karzai and to the rest of the Afghan leadership [that] what has gone [on] before hasn't been as effective as it needed to be, and we want to have the Afghan attention focused in a way that will produce results."
But will establishing a date of July 2011 for the beginning of a U.S. troop withdrawal truly give the Afghan leadership a kick in the pants to get its act together? And even if it does try hard to go after the Taliban and al Qaeda, will it be able to succeed? Based on all the corruption and dysfunction in the Afghan government, it's hard to be optimistic, but for the sake of Afghans and the world's security, I hope Clinton is right and that the situation in Afghanistan will become more tolerable.
(More of Clinton's remarks about U.S. strategy in Afghanistan are available in her testimony yesterday for the Senate Armed Services Committee and House Foreign Affairs Committee.)
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