US President Barack Obama has put off a decision on whether to send reinforcements to Afghanistan until after next week's Thanksgiving holiday amid resistance to a troop buildup among key Democrats and criticism from the right.
After months of ruminating over the way forward in the eight-year war, Obama will not announce the biggest strategic decision of his young administration until after the holiday, his spokesman Robert Gibbs said Friday.
Thanksgiving is November 26 and Americans traditionally observe a Thursday-to-Sunday break.
Obama had earlier indicated he would end months of deliberations over possible deployment of thousands more troops to the battle-scarred nation "in the coming weeks."
He has held a series of closed-door meetings with top advisers -- including General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of the more than 100,000 US and NATO troops already in the country -- to discuss the campaign in Afghanistan and how to achieve US goals there.
McChrystal has asked for up to 40,000 more US troops, warning that Afghanistan could be lost if he does not get them within a year to put down an intensifying Taliban insurgency. Currently, there are 68,000 US troops in Afghanistan.
But the top Democrat in Congress observed Friday that there may not be sufficient political support for more troops, especially when Washington had an "unworthy partner" in Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who was sworn in Thursday to a second term.
"How can we ask the American people to pay a big price in lives and limbs, and also in dollars, if we don't have a connection to a reliable partner?" House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi told National Public Radio in an interview.
"So, you know, the whole thing is let's not just talk about troops. Let's talk about what is the strategy and what are the resources that are needed in that regard."
Pelosi and other Democrats opposed a similar surge in US troops to Iraq two years ago, arguing at the time that more troops were needed in Afghanistan, the main front in the war against Al-Qaeda.
Her latest comments reflect the deep discomfort among Obama's Democrats over a deepening military commitment that some fear could sidetrack his presidency, as Vietnam did Lyndon Johnson's in the 1960s.
But the president, recently returned from a trip to Asia where he was dogged by strategy questions about the war, has also been under sustained attack from Republicans who charge that delay is putting US troops at risk.
Senator John McCain, Obama's adversary in last year's presidential election, on Friday predicted an allied victory in Afghanistan in 12 to 18 months but only if sufficient troops are sent.
Many US lawmakers are "impatient with the delay in the decision-making process," McCain said at a defense conference in Halifax, Canada.
Top Republicans wrote Obama Friday expressing "deep concern" over his Afghanistan policy, saying it has left the country and allies "uncertain about (his) commitment to the war."
In a letter obtained by AFP, 14 lawmakers including House Minority Leader John Boehner said they fear Obama's long deliberations over sending more US troops into battle "has emboldened our enemies."
"We believe that it is long overdue for our military to be in the execution stage of the strategy instead of the evaluation phase," the lawmakers wrote.
Gibbs did not say when Obama might hold another meeting with his advisers, but the White House said earlier the president was expected to meet at least one more time with his war council.
The Obama administration has been openly grappling with the issue of Afghan leadership, and has conveyed to Karzai's corruption-tainted government that the US military presence must have a time limit.
Allies Canada and the Netherlands have announced plans to pull their troops out in 2010 and 2011, respectively.
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates in a speech in Canada Friday said US forces could provide a "sustainable" replacement in the south for the departing Dutch and Canadian troops.
But he called on other allies to step forward, saying the Afghan effort will "require more commitment, more sacrifice, and more patience from the community of free nations."
According to a recent Quinnipiac University poll, approval for Obama's Afghan policy has fallen sharply to 45 percent.
Source: AFP South Asian Edition
