Barack Obama and the Afghan War

Abstract

George W. Bush’s failure to stabilize the situation in Afghanistan compelled the incoming president, Barack Obama, to revisit the problem. In mid-February 2009, Obama authorized the deployment of an additional 17,000 troops, with 4,000 more by the end of March. Eight months later he announced that the United States would be sending 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. Obama’s objectives were to put the Taliban militants back on their heels, help the president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, solidify his presidential power, and strengthen the fighting capacity of the Afghan forces. Two years later, the president proclaimed that the added troops would be back in the United States by September 2012, with the rest of the withdrawal to be completed by 2014. During the second week of January 2013, after meeting with Karzai, Obama avowed to accelerate the withdrawal of troops, because of the gains made by Afghanistan’s security forces. Obama also affirmed that the United States would keep some forces in Afghanistan after the end of NATO’s combat mission in 2014.