Top senators can’t explain Romney’s Afghanistan policy

Republican candidate Mitt Romney‘s policy on the future of U.S.-led war in Afghanistan war is unclear and confusing, complicating attempts to either support or criticize it during the campaign, according to leading senators from both parties.

On Romney’s website, the campaign criticizes President Barack Obama for announcing a "timetable" for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan and accuses the administration of placing politics over the advice of military commanders by withdrawing 30,000 surge troops by September.

"Gov. Romney supports the 2014 timetable as a realistic timetable and a residual force post-2014. But he would not have announced that timetable publicly, as President Obama did, as doing so encourages the Taliban to wait us out and our allies to hedge their bets," a Romney campaign spokesperson told The Cable.

But when it comes to what a President Romney would do differently from Obama on Afghanistan if and when he became president, the details remain sketchy.

"Mitt Romney will never make national-security decisions based upon electoral politics," the campaign website reads. "Upon taking office, he will review our transition to the Afghan military by holding discussions with our commanders in the field. He will order a full interagency assessment of our military and assistance presence in Afghanistan to determine the level required to secure our gains and to train Afghan forces to the point where they can protect the sovereignty of Afghanistan from the tyranny of the Taliban. Withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan under a Romney administration will be based on conditions on the ground as assessed by our military commanders."

Last week, The Cable asked several senior senators from both parties whether they supported Romney’s plan for Afghanistan. None was able to articulate exactly what that policy is or what the U.S. force in Afghanistan might look like if Romney is elected.

"What is it?" said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), a Romney supporter and senior member of the Armed Services Committee. "I think [Romney’s policy is] ‘listen to the commanders’ and if it’s that, that’s OK with me."

Graham agreed with Romney’s criticism of Obama’s plan to withdraw the 30,000 surge troops by September, which means the bulk of them will not be around for this summer’s fighting season. But overall, Graham supports the Obama plan to adhere to a 2014 deadline for handing over control to the Afghans while keeping a significant U.S. troop presence there afterwards.

"Generally speaking, the only problem I have with President Obama is the acceleration of the withdrawal of the surge forces," Graham said.

Graham wants Romney to publicly endorse a continued U.S. force presence in Afghanistan after the full handover of power in 2014. Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai in May signed a Strategic Partnership Agreement that would extend the presence of U.S. troops another 10 years, an agreement Graham helped to negotiate.

"I hope Romney will tell the American people that we are going to have a follow-on force in Afghanistan." Graham said. "It’s in our interest to do it."

Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-AZ) said he wasn’t sure exactly what Romney’s Afghanistan policy entailed and didn’t want to get into it.

"You would have to tell me what exactly you mean by ‘his policy.’ That’s a long discussion that I don’t want to get into," Kyl told The Cable.

Part of the challenge for the Romney team is that Republican voters are split on Afghanistan, with 48 percent supporting withdrawing all troops as soon as possible  and nearly as many, 45 percent, supporting leaving a follow-on force there until the country is stabilized. The electorate as a whole favors bringing the troops home quickly (60 percent) over keeping troops there longer (32 percent).

"These numbers point to Romney’s political bind," wrote James Lindsey, vice president of studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, in an online commentary. "He has talked tough on Afghanistan ever since last June, when Republican national security conservatives blasted him for what they saw as his insufficient commitment to the mission there. Romney responded with much tougher rhetoric even though the policies he favors look a lot like Obama’s."

For the Obama team and for Senate Democrats, Romney’s apparent unwillingness to get more specific on Afghanistan represents a good opportunity to call into question his foreign-policy bona fides and present Obama as tougher on national security because he has committed to another decade of U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

"Without getting into the campaign rhetoric of what [Romney]’s asserting, I think you’ve got 50 nations in NATO that agree to a plan in Afghanistan," Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said on ABC’s This Week in May. "It’s the Lisbon agreement, an agreement that, you know, others, President Bush, President Obama, everyone has agreed is the direction that we go in Afghanistan."

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-MI) told The Cable that the issue is just one more example of the Romney campaign avoiding tackling tough issues.

"I sure don’t know what [Romney’s Afghanistan policy] is," Levin said. "From what I’ve read, I can’t fathom his position on Afghanistan any more than I can fathom his position on a whole bunch of other things."

"I don’t know that he’s flip-flopped on Afghanistan. I don’t know that he’s ever taken a clear position. It’s not like some of the other positions he’s so consistently flip-flopped on," Levin said. "Here, I don’t know what the flip is or the flop."