President Barack Obama's surprise visit to Afghanistan on Tuesday was a well orchestrated and ostensibly nonpartisan move in advance of what is sure to be a bitter general election fight against presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney. Obama's decision to cement a 10-year security arrangement with Afghan President Hamid Karzai in such grand fashion was not only shrewdly timed and executed, but also a smart geopolitical move in the face of rising tension with China.
While it is admittedly impossible to separate the president's actions from political calculations in an election year, Tuesday was one of the rare moments in his presidency when Obama comfortably, publicly and forcefully embraced his role as commander-in-chief. The president clearly articulated the five key points of the United States' exit strategy and praised American troops for their sacrifices. Explicit in his words and implicit in his tone was the simple message that Afghanistan will not be forgotten with the departure of American ground forces. By not associating the U.S. exit from Afghanistan with a message of "mission accomplished," Obama avoided the sort of willful arrogance that former President George W. Bush displayed in 2003 during the Iraq War. The real and lasting impact of Obama's gesture this week is its political and strategic significance. The president's trip was symbolic in two ways, both of which carry profound implications for American politics and policy. Although the White House insisted that it was merely a coincidence, Obama's unannounced visit and speech came, conveniently and conspicuously, on the first anniversary of the killing of Osama Bin Laden. In the wake of the Obama campaign's uncouth mudslinging that questioned Romney's judgment on the use of Special Forces when pursuing terrorists, it is hard to believe that Obama was simply seeking a stylish way to mark the one-year anniversary of Bin Laden's death by showing up in Afghanistan late Tuesday.
Instead, all signs point to some calculated political opportunism couched in the pomp and circumstance of a presidential visit to a war zone. While I'll freely admit that I was enthralled and inspired by the president's rhetoric, the underlying meaning of his trip evidently extended far beyond just bringing the troops home. Even with the inevitable political overtones, it is difficult to fault Obama for seizing every campaign advantage possible, in this case the privilege of being the incumbent. Obama has every right to trumpet one of the crowning achievements of his presidency, and this trip was certainly a tool for doing so.
The second degree of symbolism is multifaceted and stems from the broader context of geopolitics. The third plank of Obama's newly forged strategic arrangement is an "enduring partnership" between the U.S. and Afghanistan a promise meant to nudge the Afghans toward greater independence and responsibility while reassuring them that they have not just been abandoned by their most powerful ally.
The implications of a renewed Afghan partnership extend beyond Afghanistan. Even though American soldiers will no longer patrol Afghanistan's cities and mountains, it would be foolish to think that the American footprint there will vanish entirely and even more so to think that this is not intentional. With a rising and increasingly belligerent China looming in the east, even a trace military presence in Afghanistan fits nicely with the Obama administration's "pivot to Asia" and its planned strategic encirclement of China, the world's soon-to-be-largest military spender.
Since Sino-American relations have entered a potentially rocky new chapter, the maintenance of a foothold in Central Asia is good military logic. As The Economist suggested last month, the American approach in Asia should be to pair "military strength with diplomatic subtlety." With the deployment of U.S. Marines in Australia and the conduct of joint island-storming exercises with the Philippines last month, it appears that formal jockeying and power projection in the Asia-Pacific region the world's most dynamic economic region has already begun. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit to China this week represents the second half of this strategy in terms of diplomatic engagement.
Therefore, President Obama's sojourn in Afghanistan is a smart move, not just for him politically but for American international standing more broadly.
