The timeline for withdrawal that President Obama mentioned in his West Point speech has emerged as one of the more controversial aspects of the troop surge. In his speech, the President said:
But taken together, these additional American and international troops will allow us to accelerate handing over responsibility to Afghan forces, and allow us to begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011. Just as we have done in Iraq, we will execute this transition responsibly, taking into account conditions on the ground.
The timeline for withdrawals has provoked opposition from Republicans as well as Democrats who believe that an announced withdrawal date will prompt the Taliban and their al Qaeda allies to simply wait out U.S. forces. Is the deadline firm or flexible? How will the U.S. assess when conditions on the ground permit an orderly withdrawal of forces? In Afghanistan: How Long Until We Know Brookings analysts Michael O’Hanlon and Bruce Riedel suggest that it won’t be a measure of battlefield success against the Taliban that determines the likelihood of withdrawal, but rather the new capacity and capability of the Afghan security forces, something they say we will be in a position to clearly assess by the middle of 2011.
