Can the U.S. and its allies win the war?
McChrystal says that victory is still achievable, but along with calling for more troops, he wants to make significant shifts in U.S. and NATO tactics. “The insurgents cannot defeat us militarily,” he writes, “but we can defeat ourselves.” How many more troops is McChrystal asking for? McChrystal doesn’t lay out a specific request in this report. While he has reportedly assembled several options — the mostly likely is a proposal to deploy as many as 30,000 additional troops and trainers — he has yet to submit the request to the Pentagon. President Obama ordered 21,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan earlier this year to raise the total U.S. force to 68,000 by the end of this year. What has Obama said about the general’s report? The White House says Obama has seen the report but has not received a formal request for more troops. Before any decision is made about troop levels, Obama’s spokesman Robert Gibbs said Monday, “the president is going to focus on getting the strategy right.” How