WASHINGTON: The war in Afghanistan is increasingly unpopular with the US public, but upcoming elections may hand new power to lawmakers who are pressing for a robust, long-term military commitment.
Despite intense debate in Washington over Afghanistan, the nine-year-old war has barely figured in the campaign for the November 2 congressional elections as voters and candidates alike zero in on the wobbly US economy.
Many pollsters predict gains by the Republican Party, which has attacked Democratic President Barack Obama on a range of issues but has largely agreed with his deployment of more troops to Afghanistan.
"For the war to be an issue that matters, people have got to disagree about it," said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.
Representative Dennis Kucinich, a Democrat from Ohio and staunch critic of the war, faulted his own party for not pressing to change course.
"The cost of the war is absolutely extraordinary," Kucinich said, pointing to casualties among civilians and soldiers along with the economic investment.
"The Democratic Party needed to define it as a foreign policy debacle and take steps to get out. Instead, the party approved an Obama administration plan to take steps to get in deeper," Kucinich told AFP.
Republicans have taken issue with Obama on one aspect of his Afghanistan strategy – his timeline, set in a speech last year, of starting to withdraw troops in July 2011.
Representative John Boehner – who would likely be speaker if Republicans win the House – recently called on Obama to focus on "success" rather than "arbitrary deadlines" in Afghanistan.
"After years of hard fighting – which has come at a high price – we cannot afford to underestimate the impact our domestic debates and political hedging have on decisions made by friend and foe alike," he said.
The Obama administration, which has tripled US troop numbers in Afghanistan to 100,000, has said the timeline is subject to realities on the ground but is needed to coax President Hamid Karzai to do more and not over-rely on US help.
But while Obama and the Republicans disagree over the timeline, a growing number of Americans are against the war entirely.
A CNN poll out Thursday found that 58 percent of adult Americans opposed the war.
In a Gallup poll released in August, a record 43 percent of Americans said the United States made the wrong decision in sending troops to Afghanistan after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks by Al-Qaeda.
Nonetheless, the Senate’s most prominent critic of the war, Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, is locked in one of the toughest races for a Democratic incumbent.
Feingold in May led an unsuccessful bid to require Obama to spell out a non-binding timeline for withdrawal, arguing that the more than 300 billion dollars already spent on the war saddled the United States with unsustainable debt while Al-Qaeda has been setting up new havens outside of Afghanistan.
Anti-war campaigner Derrick Crowe, political director of the Brave New Foundation, said lawmakers should take note of the public, even if the upcoming election is dominated not by the war but by an anti-incumbent fervor.
"If they act after this election in a way that furthers the deaths of troops for a war that is not making it safer, they’re going to have a real tough time when it comes to the presidential election in 2012 convincing voters they can be trusted with foreign policy issues," he said.
With Congress generally in the back seat on foreign policy, a Republican victory would have little immediate effect on the war, said James Lindsay, senior vice president at the Council on Foreign Relations.
But next year could be decisive.
Republicans – who lost control of Congress in 2006 in part due to the Iraq war – would need to weigh the political effects of a hawkish line on Afghanistan, while Obama – who rose to prominence as an Iraq war opponent – would face risks with his base if he reconsiders withdrawal, Lindsay said.
"Would it be an important enough issue to trigger a primary challenge to President Obama? In and of itself, probably not," Lindsay said.
"But is it an issue that could lead to a lack of enthusiasm and support in 2012 among Democrats? Certainly."
