Illustration by KAL

BARACK OBAMA has already roughly doubled the number of American troops in Afghanistan since taking office in January. But Stanley McChrystal, the man he chose to command American troops there, wants tens of thousands more. If he does not get them, warns the general, the mission “will likely result in failure”. On the other hand, it costs $250,000 a year to keep a single American soldier in Afghanistan. An Afghan soldier who speaks the language and can drink the water costs only a twentieth as much, as one adviser reportedly told Mr Obama earlier this year. With the budget in tatters, the deficit swelling and foreigners audibly fretting about the dollar, can America's president really commit to spending vastly more each year in the Hindu Kush, for as long as it takes to prevail? And will the voters like it if he does?

It seems that Mr Obama is no longer sure. The winner of the Nobel peace prize is hesitating to ramp up the war in Afghanistan. Rather than accepting General McChrystal's recommendation, he is soliciting more advice, consulting with congressional leaders (many of whom hate the war) and weighing all his options. His hawkish critics accuse him of dithering. Charles Krauthammer, a conservative pundit, likens him, with some justification, to Hamlet—wordy and endlessly vacillating. Republicans snort that he was bluffing all along when he said he would get tough in Afghanistan. It was all a ruse, they say, to make it sound to centrist voters that he could be trusted with America's security even as he milked the anti-Iraq war movement for every vote and dollar he could get. Some anti-war types feel the same way.

Congressional Republicans think the decision is pretty straightforward. The surge worked in Iraq, so another one should work in Afghanistan. The only alternative is defeat, which would dismay America's allies and embolden its enemies. Some Democrats concur with this assessment. Ike Skelton, who heads the House armed services committee, told ForeignPolicy.com that Mr Obama should follow General McChrystal's advice because he is the man on the ground, “like Roosevelt supported Dwight Eisenhower on D-Day”. But many Democrats disagree. Vice-President Joe Biden has argued for months that it makes little sense to spend 30 times as much money in Afghanistan as in Pakistan when there are far more al-Qaeda terrorists in Pakistan and the state they seek to overthrow there has nuclear weapons. He counsels a more parsimonious strategy in Afghanistan, using aerial drones and special forces to kill al-Qaeda leaders but otherwise handing over as much responsibility as possible to Afghans as quickly as they can be trained.

And there are other Democratic concerns. As the evidence of electoral fraud in Afghanistan becomes clearer, Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House of Representatives, asks: “Do we have an able partner in President Karzai? Is the government capable of acting in a way that is not fraught with corruption?” And are America's NATO allies, Britain apart, really committed to this struggle? Meanwhile, Jim McGovern, a Democratic congressman from Massachusetts, is pushing a bill calling for an exit strategy. He argues that extra American troops will only antagonise the Afghans and give the Taliban a recruiting tool.

Putting blood and treasure where his mouth was

What is Mr Obama to do? Public opinion offers no clear guidance. According to Gallup, 48% of Americans want to send more troops to Afghanistan, while 45% are opposed. Americans are more hawkish than they were a month ago, when it was 41% in favour of a surge and 50% against. But these numbers are fickle—the anti-war documentaries are only just beginning to air. Support for the war is weakest among Democrats, of whom only 36% want a surge, while 50% are opposed. Republicans are strongly in favour (73% to 18%), while independents are about evenly divided.

Democrats fear two things. One is that they might pour billions of dollars and hundreds of lives into Afghanistan, and still lose. The other is that a costly and unpopular war could scuttle their domestic agenda. How will they pay for universal health care, for example, if they keep burning banknotes in the Afghan inferno? All the big groups that have waited eight years for a Democratic president—greens, gays, labour unions, ethnic minorities and so forth—are at least somewhat worried that a quagmire in Afghanistan might cripple Mr Obama before he can grant their wishes. They think of Lyndon Johnson, whose escalation of the war in Vietnam, that “bitch of a war”, cut short his march towards the Great Society at home. So far, American street protests against the Afghan war have been small and sporadic—a few women in pink and committed peaceniks shouting slogans such as “Ground the drones!” and “Foreclose the war, not our homes!” But the protests against the Vietnam war started small, too.

Mr Obama is said to be searching for a middle way: perhaps a modest reinforcement, but not all the troops General McChrystal is asking for, coupled with a more concerted effort to help Pakistan deal with the jihadists in its lawless tribal areas. Some people fear this might end up being the worst of both worlds, involving a political hit for no military gain. But whatever he asks Congress for, he will probably get. Republicans are sure to back more troops, and even doveish Democrats will be reluctant to humiliate their president.

Mr Obama is wise not to be rushed. And he is wise to ponder deeply the historical precedents. But he might well reflect on a line from a British counter-insurgency specialist, quoted in Lewis Sorley's book “A Better War”, which White House staff are said to be busily reading. South Vietnam, he says, could have been saved if America had not cut off military aid to its government. “Perhaps the major lesson of the Vietnam war”, said Sir Robert Thompson, “is: do not rely on the United States as an ally.”





Economist.com/blogs/lexington