Dr. Maccoby participates in a Weekly Forum on Washington Post.com called "On Leadership". I am compiling all of his responses to the weekly questions here.

Hated Invaders

Let us imagine President Obama decides it is not in the national interest to stay in Afghanistan. He will need compelling reasons to back up that decision, but whatever he says, he should be prepared to answer critics who will argue that he is wrong, that his decision will seriously damage national security.

Supporters of our Afghanistan engagement will point out that we have not achieved our original goal of capturing Osama and wiping out al-Qaeda. They will predict that our leaving will increase the recruitment of terrorists, that as our prestige and credibility suffer, our friends will lose confidence in our commitments to them, and that terrorists will become stronger in Pakistan raising the possibility of their gaining control of nuclear weapons.

Obama might answer that al-Qaeda has been damaged by our missiles, not our troops who are fighting a different war with no foreseeable end. Furthermore, there are al-Qaeda cells in many countries; the planning for 9/11 took place in Hamburg, Germany. We will continue to attack the bases in the Afghanistan and Pakistan mountains from our ships and bases, and we will continue to seek and destroy al-Qaeda cells and terrorists who plan to harm us, wherever they are.

As for terrorist recruitment, those with the most experience in Afghanistan believe terrorism will be promoted rather than contained by placing more troops in that country. The claim that we'll lose prestige and credibility is not supported by history. The U.S .did not lose its friends in Asia by leaving Vietnam, where we were supporting, as now in Afghanistan, a corrupt government against an insurgency with deep roots in the country. Many people in Afghanistan fear and hate the Taliban, but many hate us even more as invaders.

There is no way to prove predictions of what will happen if we remove our troops from Afghanistan. The president has to weigh all the views and information available before deciding what is in the national interest. The decision to leave will also require a strategy for leaving. Ideally, the U.S. and our allies would be able to engage the Taliban leadership in negotiations so that in exchange for our leaving, they would agree to a truce. A goal of negotiations should be their agreement to stop supporting al-Qaeda, which has a different purpose from theirs. We could offer to continue economic support which would be much less costly than waging a never-ending war.

Even if Obama persuades the majority of Americans that a change in strategy is based on the best assessment of the national interest, he will be attacked by Republicans who will see a political opportunity to label him as weak and by neo-con idealists who believe we can remake the world in our image. These are some of the same people who predicted we would be hailed in Iraq as liberators. Obama will need to educate the American public that we live in a multi-cultural world, that our ability to influence others is significant but limited, and that we undermine our prestige and our own values by trying to force them on others.

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