The political scenario always keeps changing and decisions of the past are reversed to cater to new situations. That is what is happening in afghanistan where there is a need to pressurize the Taliban to negotiate with the Afghan government.
Therefore, advisors of Donald Trump want him to sanction sending of additional military to Afghanistan. In their opinion, such a step would give more freedom to American advisers to interact with the Afghan forces.
However, it would go against the decision taken by the Obama administration which is not strange.
When a new administrative setup takes over, it does away with the earlier line of thinking but, in this case, it will put a major burden on Donald Trump because sending more troops to Afghanistan would mean spending on a cause that may not provide the desired results.
The role of U.S. troops in Afghanistan
According to New York Times, the U.S. troops positioned in Afghanistan have to perform two main tasks namely – to advise and train the Afghan forces and conduct counterterrorism missions. The team of advisors include the Pentagon, the State Department, intelligence community and other government agencies associated with America’s longest war but President Donald Trump has not yet given his seal of approval to their recommendations.
Incidentally, one of the top American commanders in Afghanistan had suggested similar action to the Congress in February and the present recommendations of the advisors are believed to have followed the same line.
Right now there is an international force in Afghanistan that includes Americans and they are supposed to extend assistance to the Afghans.
The suggestion of the advisors is to augment the American strength with additional troops of the Special Operations forces. President Trump will have to consider all the pros and cons before taking a decision on this issue ahead of the forthcoming NATO meeting.
Donald Trump on the horns of a dilemma
It is a tricky situation for Donald Trump because deploying additional troops to Afghanistan would mean an expenditure with no guarantee of a win.
As it is, the U.S. was unable to negotiate any settlement even when it had large number of troops in Afghanistan and sending more troops may not be productive. On the other hand, if America loosens its grip, it would be difficult to rein in the Taliban and the ISIS extremists.
The president has his hands full with existing problems related to North Korea, and Syria apart from domestic issues connected to the immigration ban, building the Mexico border wall and outsourcing of jobs. Once Afghanistan gets added to the list, his problems would multiply.
In case he has to send additional troops to Afghanistan, it would mean increased reliance of the country on America to solve its problems with the Taliban and would delay their decision making process. U.S. troops who are positioned in the country are expected to play an advisory role and are not supposed to get involved in its regular security duties.
