WASHINGTON -The 21,000 paratroopers, infantrymen and Marines being rushed to Afghanistan this spring will fight with a markedly narrowed mission: to kill al-Qaida and hard-core Taliban insurgents and to train Afghan soldiers and police.
The new strategy, outlined by President Barack Obama at the White House on Friday, breaks from the ambitious goals of championing freedom and establishing a moderate, democratic state with a thriving economy pursued by the Bush administration.
In a sober speech at the White House, Obama declared that for Americans, the Afghanistan-Pakistan region "has become the most dangerous place in the world," and he acknowledged that the struggle to contain an expanding, violent insurgency has reached a "perilous" point.
But, he stressed, "We are not in Afghanistan to control that country or to dictate its future." America's goal is simple, he said: "to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaida in Pakistan and Afghanistan and to prevent their return to either country in the future."
Obama promised $1.5 billion a year to build roads, schools and hospitals in Pakistan, where the threat posed by an accelerating al-Qaida and Taliban-led insurgency was underscored Friday by a suicide bomb blast that killed more than 50 worshipers at a mosque.
He vowed to enlist nations in the region, including China, India, Russia and Iran, in a new diplomatic front against such extremist violence.
White House officials later acknowledged that some details of the new strategy, including dealing with narcotics and corruption, haven't been worked out yet.
But a senior intelligence official underscored the urgency of the new effort, saying that Taliban insurgents are gaining territory and that the Afghan government is losing influence across the country.
Most troubling, he said, is that the Taliban has set up alternative governments in some districts.
With the Taliban expanding and additional U.S. forces pouring into Afghanistan, "we project that the violence will grow even greater - 2009 will be more violent than 2008," said the official, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity.
Outside the White House, the new strategy was greeted with some caution and skepticism among counterinsurgency experts.
"I think it's the right first step - but it may turn out to be more of a down payment" toward success, said Stephen Biddle of the Council on Foreign Relations. Prevailing against an entrenched insurgency "can be a very expensive, long-term undertaking," he said.
