DENVER—A Republican congressman from Colorado wants a new strategy in Afghanistan, saying America’s approach there is “incredibly unrealistic.”
Rep. Mike Coffman, an Iraq War veteran, returned this week from his second trip to Afghanistan. He blasted the strategy of President Barack Obama and Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. and NATO war commander in Afghanistan, as too broad.
“We are trying to create an Afghanistan that I’m not sure the Afghan people neither want nor are capable of achieving,” said Coffman, who met with military leaders and visited Kabul, the capital, and Helmand province, a battle area where winning over the population is key.
Coffman mentioned American efforts to build roads and help achieve female equality.
“We’re trying to do too much. We’re trying to restructure Afghan society, trying to develop an economy they’ve never had, trying to change their political culture,” he said.
But Coffman said that after the U.S. midterm election the president will face less pressure from anti-war Democrats to withdraw troops. With Republicans taking control of the House, the change actually could help Obama on Afghanistan strategy.
“It bought the president more time,” Coffman said of the GOP takeover. “Had the change not occurred in the House, I think the president would be stuck with having a material downsizing in the U.S. military presence by July of next year.”
“In every other area of his policy, the election hurt his agenda. But in Afghanistan, his hand was strengthened by Republican control of Congress,” he said.
Already, the administration has shifted away from a 2011 deadline to start withdrawing troops. With the war in its 10th year, Obama and other Western leaders approved plans last weekend for Afghans to take the lead role in fighting the Taliban and its allies by the end of 2014.
The United States has about 100,000 troops deployed in Afghanistan. Other countries have about 40,000.
Petraeus said this week that the coalition’s goal is to raise security and governance to a level when Afghans can take the lead.
But Coffman said that strategy is not essential to American security interests.
What can Coffman, not yet entering his second term in the House, do from his spot on the House Armed Services Committee?
Coffman suggested a surprising tack for a Republican veteran: pushing for budget cuts for military.
“What they’re doing is really unsustainable for a long period of time, in terms of its cost to the overall budget,” said Coffman, adding he plans to lobby Republican colleagues to consider a leaner military presence in Afghanistan.
Coffman called for “a middle ground” between withdrawing troops entirely and continuing the current strategy.
“I strongly believe that there is a middle ground between the current counter-insurgency approach that has become the centerpiece of this robust nation-building operation and a counterterrorism approach which is a military-only strategy that involves striking directly at the threats as we discover them,” Coffman wrote in an e-mail later Wednesday.
