New Haven Independent

U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd questioned how successfully the U.S. can achieve its goals in Afghanistan — and whether the Afghans even want us to help.

Dodd made the remarks in an interview just outside the Senate chambers Tuesday afternoon, hours before President Barack Obama told the nation in a televised address why he is sending 34,000 fresh troops to the South Central Asian nation.

Call him a supportive skeptic. Dodd was careful to credit Obama for deliberating thoughtfully before making his decision. At the same time, he wondered aloud what the U.S. can achieve with more troops. (Click on the play arrow to watch him discuss the role that promoting democracy plays in the mission.)

Dodd echoed that nuanced message in a statement released after Obama’s address.

“While I remain skeptical about the prospect of sending another 30,000 American
troops into Afghanistan, the president made a serious proposal tonight that merits
careful consideration by the Congress and the American people,” Dodd said in the release. “The most important thing to me is that we get our strategy in Afghanistan right so we can complete the mission as soon as possible … I look forward to consulting with our military leaders and senior diplomats to evaluate the president’s proposal.”

Meanwhile, in a statement striking in its lack of partisan posturing, one of the leading Republicans looking to unseat Democrat Dodd in 2010 offered a similar take on Obama’s speech.

That opponent, Republican Linda McMahon, called Obama’s speech “important because, while there is no policy proposal on Afghanistan that is without valid criticism, lack of a clear policy endangers the lives of American troops on the ground. Now that a policy decision has been made, and tens of thousands of additional troops have been committed to Afghanistan, it’s critically important that the Commander in Chief commit himself fully to achieving success.”

Do They Want us?

Much of the Afghanistan debate has centered in recent weeks on the number of troops Obama should dispatch. That matters, Dodd said in the Senate interview Tuesday afternoon. Defining the mission — and determining whether the U.S. can hand it off to teh Afghans at some point — matters more, he argued.

“If this is a nation-building process,” Dodd said, “I have fundamental problems with it.”

“I must wonder whether or these goals can be achieved, whether we can actually get people to do what they should do for themselves. If they’re anxious to do that, we should help people to do that. If they’re not anxious to do that, I don’t think it matters how many troops you send or how much of a check you write. If you’re unwilling to take on this responsibility yourself, you’re awfully hard to help.”

“I have a threshold question: ‘Do you want me there to help you?’”

America’s interests in Afghanistan have more to do with neighboring Pakistan than with Afghanistan, Dodd argued. If the Taliban succeed in Afghanistan, he argued, that could destabilize Pakistan — which has nuclear weapons, and which is considered a staging ground for terrorist groups. A destabilized Pakistan could in turn destabilize the Middle East, Dodd argued.

Dodd has been a leading liberal voice of foreign policy since arriving in the Senate in 1981. he opposed the Reagan administration’s financing of the anti-government contra rebels in Nicaragua at the time. The U.S. military experience in Central America holds lessons for decision-makers confronting new challenges in other parts of the world today, he said. One lesson: the U.S. can promote ideas “without financing a civil war.”