Present U.S. Troop Levels in Afghanistan to be Maintained (Likely for the Foreseeable Future): It's All About Those Drone Bases

The Ashraf Ghani stories continue to roll out. The president of Afghanistan is in the United States for another few days. Today he'll address a joint session of Congress, and then tomorrow he's off to New York and the United Nations. So we'll be treated to several more articles before the "Ralph Nader of Afghanistan" returns to Kabul.

None will be bigger than today's frontpager by Michael Shear and Mark Mazzetti, "U.S. to Delay Pullout of Troops From Afghanistan to Aid Strikes." Weeks of Obama administration off-the-record comments buttressed a campaign of "public diplomacy" designed for yesterday's POTUS announcement that the United States will be keeping troop levels for Afghanistan at 10,000:

WASHINGTON — President Obama’s decision to maintain troop levels in Afghanistan through 2015 is partly designed to bolster American counterterrorism efforts in that country, including the Central Intelligence Agency’s ability to conduct secret drone strikes and other paramilitary operations from United States military bases, administration officials said Tuesday.

Mr. Obama on Tuesday announced that he would leave 9,800 American troops in Afghanistan until at least the end of the year. The announcement came after a daylong White House meeting with President Ashraf Ghani of Afghanistan. The two men said the decision was a necessary response to the expected springtime resurgence of Taliban aggression and the need to give more training to the struggling Afghan security forces.

The issue here is the same one I mentioned last year -- the necessity of maintaining drone bases:

But two American officials said that a significant part of the deliberations on the pace of the withdrawal had been focused on the need for the C.I.A. and military special operations forces to operate out of two large military bases: Kandahar Air Base in southern Afghanistan and a base in Jalalabad, the biggest city in the country’s east. Reducing the military force by half from its current level, as planned, would have meant closing the bases and relocating many of the C.I.A.’s personnel and its contractors.

Jalalabad has been the primary base used by the C.I.A. to conduct drone strikes in the tribal areas of Pakistan. The drone operations were relocated there after the Pakistani government kicked the C.I.A. out of an air base inside Pakistan. The pace of drone strikes there has declined significantly since the peak during the early years of the Obama administration, but intelligence officials have lobbied to keep enough of a military presence in Afghanistan to allow the drone program to continue.

“The intelligence community sees around 10,000 troops as a key baseline to keep counterterrorism operations going in the country,” said one American official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss classified operations in Afghanistan.

A threat of Islamic State jihadis is being invoked to maintain U.S. troop levels:

The resilience of Al Qaeda in the mountains that straddle the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan has surprised many American officials, and there are fears that the Islamic State could gain a foothold in the Afghan conflict. Mr. Ghani has repeatedly raised the specter of the Islamic State in comments ahead of his trip to Washington and during his visit.

Obama has said that by the end of his presidency there will only be 1,000 U.S. troops left in Afghanistan to guard the embassy in Kabul. Don't count on it. Whoever wins the White House will favor a maintenance of the drone bases in Jalalabad and Kandahar -- the collapse of the Iraqi Army last summer is front and center in the thoughts of Pentagon and State Department planners -- which will require backtracking on Obama's pledge.

What is interesting in all this is how the "Peace President" has presided over a transition to a "new normal" of perpetual war. It is now broadly accepted, if not stated, that the United States will be in a state of constant warfare -- fighting the proxies of official allies like Saudi Arabia, a monarchy that supports global jihad, and official foes like Iran and Syria (while working with them at the same time to keep the jihadis at bay).

This new normal is not going to play well with the American electorate who likes to be assured that peace is at the very least a policy aspiration. But the opinion of the American electorate is beside the point. The billionaires call the shots now. Voter turnout will continue to drop. Qualifications for voting will increase. Ten years from now the bad shape we are presently in could look pretty rosy.