War Keeps Evolving As Obama Develops Strategy

RENEE MONTAGNE, host:

As President Obama struggles with what may turn out to be the toughest decision of his presidency, the White House has been holding a series of meetings with its war counsel. The latest on efforts to train Afghan security forces - NPR's Mary Louise Kelly is tracking these meetings, and she joins us now to talk about it.

Good morning.

MARY LOUISE KELLY: Good morning, Renee.

MONTAGNE: What else do we know about this latest meeting?

KELLY: Well, this latest one was the fifth of six sessions that they have planned for the president's National Security team. And as you mentioned, this latest one, they apparently focused on what they can do to build up Afghanistan's army and police force. There was also discussion on how to strengthen civilian efforts there.

And then, we're told, they started with an update on the political and security situation on the ground, which, of course, keeps evolving, even as the president and his advisors are in Washington debating the strategy and the way forward.

MONTAGNE: And we've been hearing soon and within weeks. Is there any indication of when exactly the president will announce his new strategy?

KELLY: No. The coming weeks is as specific as they've gotten. It was interesting, there were questions raised at the White House briefing yesterday over whether President Obama will make a decision when the election in Afghanistan still hasn't been resolved. And that's a tough one. You know, one of the premises of the counterinsurgency strategy that the president announced this past spring - indeed of any counterinsurgency strategy - is that you need a credible partner on the ground. Right now, the U.S. isn't sure if they have that, and that has really complicated the strategy.

I think one of the questions they're looking at, to put it bluntly, is do you want to send tens of thousands more U.S. troops to fight for an Afghan government that appears to be corrupt? The other point, Renee, is this is a new strategy for both Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the situation in Pakistan, very much a moving target, too.

MONTAGNE: And this morning, we're reporting that militants launched three attacks in Pakistan in the city of Lahore today. How does Pakistan fit into the White House's strategy at this point in time?

KELLY: Oh, very much front and center. When you mention these attacks today, these coordinated, very sophisticated-seeming attacks in Lahore, that caps what has been a terrible couple of weeks on the ground in Pakistan, starting with an attack on a U.N. facility in the capital. There have been a couple of big car bombings, and then this truly stunning attack this past weekend on Pakistan's military headquarters just outside the capital.

I think it's safe to say, that is if - all these events on the ground, if anything, increasing the focus here in Washington on the Pakistan side of the border, and on the sense that if anything, the U.S. has greater strategic interests in Pakistan than in Afghanistan. I mean, Pakistan's population, five or six times larger than Afghanistan's. Pakistan is where al-Qaida's top leaders are believed to be hiding, and then, of course, Pakistan, a nuclear power.

MONTAGNE: So from what you've been saying, it would appear that a key consideration in whatever President Obama does in Afghanistan will be doing nothing that would destabilize Pakistan.

KELLY: Well, sure. Destabilizing Pakistan is clearly the last thing anyone wants to do. But there are different schools of thought on this. There's the argument that the U.S. should do everything it can to avoid chaos in Afghanistan, and thus avoid chaos spilling over the border into Pakistan. Others argue that the future of Pakistan will mostly be determined by forces within that country, and that an expanded U.S. counterinsurgency effort in Afghanistan could actually make things harder if it pushes militants back across the border. Ultimately, of course, what matters here is the president's view. But that's a little window into how complicated these issues all are and into how reasonable people are arriving at very different views on the way forward.

MONTAGNE: Mary Louise, thanks very much.

KELLY: You're welcome, Renee.

MONTAGNE: NPR's Mary Louise Kelly. This is NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.