Bruce Riedel, who has been an advisor to four presidents on the Mideast and South Asia, now has advised White House in war in Afghanistan. His experiences as a CIA officer may influence his advices though. "Responding to reports that Mr. Obama on Tuesday will call for an escalation of the war in Afghanistan, possibly an increase of 30,000 troops, Reidel said, “This is a very bold gamble on the part of the president. He inherited a situation which was getting bad and is getting worse now.”[1] He thinks the decision of Obama in deploying new forces to Afghanistan is “probably the most important foreign-policy decision … he is going to make”. Riedel thinks, if Obama can convince Americans that he believes he has a workable way forward, they will accept the idea of sending more troops.
Therefore, what the adviser focuses on is making people convinced. The mere justification is to remind the threat of foreign enemy. The adviser announces, "We face a very determined enemy in the Taliban and al-Qaida, which just last week announced that it is prepared to fight and has no interest in negotiation." And nobody asks whether they were pursuing negotiation till now and now they want to root out the enemy by sending more troops?
One way of convincing people may be creating hope. As he says "“Hopefully, the strategy [the president] is proposing will demonstrate results and while we won’t know when the war will be over, we will know we are on a path to an outcome that protects American national security and keeps the Taliban and al-Qaida from taking over Afghanistan.”
Another way is creating fear "I think that if the president spells out to the American people why we are there in terms of the threat it still poses to this country by al-Qaida and its Taliban ally, many Americans will say ‘Yes, we don’t want another 9/11.’ ”
But here is some questions in people's mind that why they are not successful during these long years of presence in that country? Is the reason has just been not having adequate troops? The increasing poll of dead and casualties concerned the people and they want their children home by Christmas instead of Afghanistan.
Riedel is now a senior foreign policy fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.
[1].http://www.projo.com/news/content/AFGHANISTAN_EXPERT_SPEAKS_12-01-09_LNGKSQJ_v15.3b3d9f5.html
Therefore, what the adviser focuses on is making people convinced. The mere justification is to remind the threat of foreign enemy. The adviser announces, "We face a very determined enemy in the Taliban and al-Qaida, which just last week announced that it is prepared to fight and has no interest in negotiation." And nobody asks whether they were pursuing negotiation till now and now they want to root out the enemy by sending more troops?
One way of convincing people may be creating hope. As he says "“Hopefully, the strategy [the president] is proposing will demonstrate results and while we won’t know when the war will be over, we will know we are on a path to an outcome that protects American national security and keeps the Taliban and al-Qaida from taking over Afghanistan.”
Another way is creating fear "I think that if the president spells out to the American people why we are there in terms of the threat it still poses to this country by al-Qaida and its Taliban ally, many Americans will say ‘Yes, we don’t want another 9/11.’ ”
But here is some questions in people's mind that why they are not successful during these long years of presence in that country? Is the reason has just been not having adequate troops? The increasing poll of dead and casualties concerned the people and they want their children home by Christmas instead of Afghanistan.
Riedel is now a senior foreign policy fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.
[1].http://www.projo.com/news/content/AFGHANISTAN_EXPERT_SPEAKS_12-01-09_LNGKSQJ_v15.3b3d9f5.html
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