Secretary of Defense Gates Backpedaling on Afghanistan

James Phillips / October 01, 2009

President Obama yesterday met with his top advisers to discuss Afghanistan policy and afterwards word leaked out that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates appears to be wavering on going forward with the Obama Administration’s new strategy for Afghanistan. Yochi Dreazen reported in the Wall Street Journal today that Gates, who has supported the counterinsurgency approach in the past, “now worries that counterinsurgency might no longer be a viable approach for countering the Taliban violence roiling once-stable parts of north and west Afghanistan.” This is yet another sign that the Obama Administration may be backpedaling away from the counterinsurgency-based Afghanistan strategy which it unveiled last March. (more…)