The best of bad options: more troops, but not 40,000

Yet there are ways, short of doubling down in Afghanistan, to improve the underlying dynamics of the conflict. From the plate of bad options, the best choice would be to maintain current troop levels as a baseline, while adding relatively modest numbers of specialty troops. They should include trainers to improve the Afghan army and a combat brigade to increase pressure on the Taliban. For President Obama, this would mean overruling his commander, General Stanley McChrystal, who is seeking a large troop increase to conduct a manpower-intensive counterinsurgency strategy.

There are compelling reasons to reject the commander’s request, some of which emerged after McChrystal made his initial recommendation in late August. The most serious is the declining support for the Karzai government, which would be a necessary partner in the ambitious initiative recommended by McChrystal. By the general’s own description, this would be less a combat mission than an attempt to win over local populations and persuade tribal leaders in southern and eastern Afghanistan to support Karzai over the Taliban.

In McChrystal’s analysis, the credibility of Karzai’s government is a crucial factor in whether the counterinsurgency effort succeeds. Winning the population, McChrystal wrote in his assessment to Obama, “will require a better understanding of the people’s choices and needs.’’ He added, “Progress is hindered by the dual threat of a resilient insurgency and a crisis of confidence in the government and the international coalition.’’

But the Afghan government is ever less capable of helping in this effort, for Karzai’s standing has plunged since McChrystal made the report. The events surrounding Karzai’s fraudulent reelection attested to the depths of public disdain for his administration. In cables leaked last week, US ambassador Karl Eikenberry expressed diminishing confidence in Karzai and warned against a large troop buildup. The ambassador is right: Without an effective partner in the Afghan government, even the additional troops would not be able to defeat the various Taliban networks. By the measures commonly cited in counterinsurgency doctrine, it would take at least 240,000 troops deployed over many years to stamp out the insurgents.

That’s too many for the United States to commit to Afghanistan, given the growing number of international threats to American security.

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Instead, the first American priority should be to reform the Afghan government. Karzai’s ministers now function almost as a criminal syndicate, taking cuts of the heroin trade, natural resources, international aid, customs fees, and road and bridge tolls. The United States should use its leverage with Karzai to force him to replenish his inner circle with ministers capable of commanding local respect. They should include leaders of the dominant Pashtun ethnic group who are known and respected in Pashtun areas. Similarly, US and NATO forces should dramatically step up their training of the Afghan army and police, with the particular goal of adding more Pashtun recruits and commanders. Soldiers from the Tajik, Uzbek, and Hazara minorities commonly fear deployment to Pashtun areas and are often resented by the local population when they get there. Pashtuns must be made to see that the Karzai government serves them, as well.

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s military and intelligence establishment must be persuaded to stop sheltering the Taliban leader Mullah Omar in Quetta, capital of the Pakistani province of Baluchistan, and to shut down the Taliban supply line that runs from Quetta to southern Afghanistan.

Some experts, including Stephen Biddle, who helped prepare McChrystal’s plan, argue that without the sharp increase in counterinsurgency forces, America’s leverage would be limited. But reforming the Afghan government and winning greater cooperation from neighboring Pakistan don’t require a large troop buildup. The United States can prove its commitment and staying power in other ways. Adding a brigade of combat troops - about 4,000 soldiers - would help protect Americans and convince wavering Afghans that the United States is not abandoning their country to the Taliban.

Some experts contend that even such a relatively small commitment is unjustified because the dangers of Al Qaeda securing a base of operations in Afghanistan are overstated; some believe Al Qaeda’s current hiding place in the mountainous Pakistani region of Waziristan is more secure. But these arguments are hard to square with the undeniable fact that a devastating act of international terrorism was indeed launched by the Al Qaeda leadership from a safe haven in Afghanistan. If Al Qaeda or any other terrorist group with a global reach were to obtain the backing of a loyal Afghan government, the United States would be endangered.

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This is not to say that Afghanistan is the only possible staging ground for an international terrorist attack, or the only front in the battle against Al Qaeda. Helping the Pakistani government fight its own war against Islamic extremists is more important in the long run. Pakistan, with nuclear weapons, is the essential American ally, not Afghanistan.

But a significant US presence in Afghanistan protects America’s interests in the most dangerous corner of the world. Such a presence proves to Pakistan, which has long complained that the Americans only care about the region in geopolitical terms, the extent of the US commitment. It also helps prevent the emergence of an Islamist threat in Afghanistan that could menace Pakistan from outside its borders, increasing the chances of a radical takeover of the nuclear-armed nation.

These are important American priorities but lack the sense of immediacy that often serves to rouse wartime passions. After five years of watching George W. Bush artificially stoke those passions in the service of the Iraq war, it is thus welcome to see Obama take his time in crafting an appropriate strategy for Afghanistan.

Former vice president Dick Cheney leveled his best shot at Obama last month, insisting that the president was “dithering’’ while American troops were in jeopardy. Cheney’s red-meat rhetoric wasn’t echoed by many Republicans currently in office, a sign that some in the GOP, too, see the need for restraint in Afghanistan.

The middle path in such a conflict is often the least satisfying politically. It risks the least and promises a more distant reward. But Afghanistan is a unique situation - a potential threat to American security but not the only one, or even the biggest one, in an increasingly dangerous world. Pursuing the clear and honorable goal of maintaining stability while risking as few troops as possible is not the kind of strategy that gets trumpeted through the ages. But it’s the best course for this moment in Afghanistan.