Some Dems fret over Afghanistan commitment

Delahunt says that war fatigue has worn away people’s patience with both Iraq and Afghanistan. “They’re tired,” he said of his constituents in Massachusetts.

“They do make the distinction between the wars, but there is the overarching sense of ‘when is it going to be over? When are we going to be able to address domestic needs?’ And ‘it’ does include Afghanistan.”

But since the Democrats became the majority in the House in 2007, Delahunt and other members of the Out of Iraq Caucus have been marginalized and ineffective in stopping the funding of military operations.

Can't afford to fail
In contrast to skeptics like Woolsey and Delahunt, other congressional Democrats stress the belief that the United States can’t afford to fail in Afghanistan.

“We would be derelict in our duty if we didn’t do everything we can to prevent the people that planned the Sept. 11 attacks from having sanctuary anywhere, whether it is in Afghanistan or Pakistan,” said Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Calif., a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee.

How does Tauscher define success in Afghanistan?

It will be when “the duly elected government of the people can govern and can control their borders and can manage their country in a way that promotes the well-being of their citizens — so that their country is not a place where bad guys can congregate and plan to do bad things,” she said.

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And is that success feasible in Afghanistan? “It has to be,” said Tauscher. 

Need for more troops in Afghanisntan
Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Sen. Carl Levin, D- Mich., said that “as we bring troops home (from Iraq) and we rotate them, we’ve got to find a way to provide more troops” for Afghanistan. He added that it’s “critically important that NATO step up as well” so that more of the reinforcements come from Germany, Britain, and other NATO members.

“Our troops are overstressed,” Levin said, “We’ve got to take that into account; we can’t just move troops from Iraq to Afghanistan.”

Is there a larger concern among his constituents about an open-ended commitment to Afghanistan? “Not yet,” Levin answered.

And is war fatigue about Iraq spilling over into fatigue about Afghanistan? “Not yet,” he said again.

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Americans can make the distinction between Iraq and Afghanistan, he said. “They sense it for a number of reasons. They sense that we don’t have that sectarian division in Afghanistan the way that there is in Iraq. We’ve got a government in Afghanistan which is more unified. We’ve got an army in Afghanistan which is motivated, an army filled with warriors that hate the Taliban.”

Need for nation-building in Pakistan, too
Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., pointed out this week that nation-building in Afghanistan inevitably must entail considerable long-term nation building with its next-door neighbor: Pakistan.

Along with Indiana Republican Sen. Richard Lugar (whose photo appears in a new Obama TV ad released this week), Biden has proposed a bill to spend $7.5 billion over the next five years on nation-building operations in Pakistan, including constructing roads, drilling wells (for water, not oil) and establishing non-Islamic schools.

Obama is a co-sponsor of the Biden-Lugar bill.

If Obama wins the presidency, do not expect Afghanistan skeptics such as Woolsey to have much sway in the first days of his administration.

At least for the first year, Obama would likely have his way in designing the Afghanistan commitment. And congressional Democrats would have to decide whether they were willing to pay for it.

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