Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel\u00a0was fired amidst\u00a0significant foreign-policy leaks\u00a0on\u00a0Saturday morning.<\/p>\n
The New York Times reported that the United States will expand its mission in Afghanistan in 2015, with US troops participating in direct combat with the Taliban.<\/p>\n
This flies in the face of Obama\u2019s very public announcement six months ago in the Rose Garden that US troops in Afghanistan would be shifting into a “training and advisory” role next year.<\/p>\n
American airpower will furthermore support\u00a0Afghan forces. This bombshell was strategically leaked ahead of a holiday week in which\u00a0Americans will be shopping\u00a0for bargains in a very bleak\u00a0economy.<\/p>\n
The Afghanistan reversal is a\u00a0new hawkish posture and Hagel\u2019s departure after he helped to\u00a0manage a withdrawal from Afghanistan and shrink the Pentagon budget, will be regarded as a logical step.<\/p>\n
Obama\u2019s decision, made during a furious White House debate\u00a0in recent weeks with his senior national security advisers, came over the objection of some of his top civilian aides, who argued that American lives should not be put at risk next year in any operations against the Taliban\u00a0when\u00a0Al Qaeda is actually rising\u00a0in Iraq.<\/p>\n
But the military pushed back and\u00a0curiously Hagel’s\u00a0departure directly coincides with the new aggressive attack plan for Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
ISIS\u2019s rapid emergence, it’s unhindered oil sales and other foreign-policy crises possibly contributed to Hagel\u2019s\u00a0ouster.<\/p>\n
The United States is changing course toward a more aggressive foreign policy: it is recommitting to the war in Afghanistan, which is by far the country\u2019s longest, spanning two two-term presidencies.<\/p>\n
The number of troops in Iraq has doubled, and the administration will soon seek an authorization from a Congress that is extremely unlikely to include a provision that outlaws direct combat by US troops, in a distinctly interventionist climate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel\u00a0was fired amidst\u00a0significant foreign-policy leaks\u00a0on\u00a0Saturday morning. The New York Times reported that the United States will expand its mission in Afghanistan in 2015, with US troops participating in direct combat with the Taliban. This flies in the face of Obama\u2019s very public announcement six months ago in the Rose Garden that US … Continue reading “Fresh war in Afghanistan”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2961,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1295],"tags":[2355,5494,10607,1646,1226,1638,1808],"class_list":["post-16983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-depth-coverage","tag-afghanistan","tag-chuck-hagel","tag-interventionist","tag-pentagon","tag-troops","tag-us","tag-war"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2961"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16983"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16983\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16984,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16983\/revisions\/16984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}