Third Way Dispatch

(NOTE: This piece was authored by Third Way’s Senior Policy Fellow for National Security, Jonathan Morgenstein.)

Yesterday, the Department of Defense announced the expected deployment of about 3,000 Marines to shore up the NATO mission in Afghanistan. The decision to increase troop levels in Afghanistan, the actual central front in the War on Terror, although yet to be finalized by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, is crucial, if very, very tardy. If the Bush administration hadn’t waited six years to talk about such an idea, let alone implement one, perhaps Afghanistan wouldn’t be slipping back toward general chaos right now.

We give credit to Secretary Gates and his staff for making the shift and finally listening to the progressives who have been calling for such action for a long time. Although many progressive leaders in and out of Congress—and many field commanders for that matter—have been calling for a much greater expansion of US forces in Afghanistan than the 3,000 Marines offered by the administration, this is a good start. Of course, our NATO allies have to pick up the slack and strengthen their presence there as well. However, they will remain reluctant as long as the United States shirks its leadership responsibilities and doesn’t seriously commit the resources needed to win there.

Kudos to both the progressive national security voices who have been pushing for this kind of action, as well as to the progressive majority that took over Congress in 2006. This new majority was responsible for the President finally forcing out Donald Rumsfeld and his myopic staff that bungled so badly everything but the initial phases of the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan. It was this progressive pressure that prompted the appointment of a new, reality-based Secretary of Defense, who then ushered-in more capable and less ideological Pentagon leadership.

Indeed, if there is progress as a result of this new deployment, let’s be clear where the credit should lie. This change made at the top of the Pentagon, was forced by progressive pressure and the overwhelming message of disapproval delivered by the electorate in November 2006. And, it was only this change that facilitated the possibility of refocusing on—and winning—the war that we’ve needed to fight from the beginning to actually defeat al Qaeda … Afghanistan.