as for syria, you make a fair point, but we need to ramp up our role in syria. we re not doing enough now. the president s policy there is not as successful as it s been in afghanistan even though afghanistan itself is still a passable one, i think we should try to preserve that relative progress. in syria we have no such real progress to report. we need a much-invigorated capability, but i don t see this as either/or. we ve got to have policies that are tailored to each country s conditions, and we re going to have to wage this broader conflict on multiple fronts. jenna: it ll be interesting. this is i don t want to say a riding scale, but the president in conceding to do this perhaps does become more aggressive in other parts of the world. it s hard to know at this point, but it ll be interesting to see what goes on from here. tony and michael, great to have you both. appreciate your perspective. certainly more on this today. and, jon, you know, our show s unique because we have
forces when they are in a pinch in tough tactical fights. i think we should continue to do that. the president doesn t like to talk about that, butst actually something we re doing, and i think we re doing. 5,500 may be too few, i take them seriously. we should have that debate, but the good news is if you preserve this infrastructure, you ve got flexibility and so will the next president. i think that range of up to 10,000 troops is actually a very formidable and appropriate capability going forward. jenna: tony, why do you think this makes us safer today? two reasons. first, we recognized before 9/11 that the al-qaeda folks were able to use the taliban in afghanistan as a base for operations. there s no reason to believe that won t happen again. al-qaeda has moved back into pakistan based on discussions with intelligence experts. with that said though, we have to recognize we can t be everywhere and do everything for the afghans.
while minimizing the strain and exposure on our men and became in uniform and women in uniform and make sure we are constantly emphasizing to the afghan people this is their country, and they ve got to defend it. but we re going to be a steady parter partner for them. thank you, everybody. jenna: the president taking a bit of a surprise question, answering a journalist who asked are you disappointed? the president as early as 2009 was really talking about ending the war in afghanistan and had repeatedly laid out his plan to do so ministration. so this is a change. 9,800 troops with two narrow taskings as the president describes it, training the afghan forces and supporting counterterrorism operations, not being in any sort of combat role. a lot to talk about here. we re going to bring in lieutenant colonel tony be schafer, senior fellow at the london center for policy research. he conducted cross-border raids into pakistan from pakistan into afghanistan back in 2003.
and mike to to hand land also mike o hanlon, director of foreign policy research for the brookings institution. you both spent some time in the country from very different perspectives. so that s going to really add to the conversation we re going to have now. lieutenant colonel, what do you think of the mission as the president has laid it out? this is absolutely the right way to go. we ve got to focus on the reconciliation process. the president brought that up. we cannot do that for them. i ve talked about this, my book operation darkheart, this is very much like the northern ireland process where you have two elements of the same religion, in this case two tribes, two elements of the same tribe fighting each other. and we ve really got to do the job of helping that go in that direction. the president s correct also in main a towning the anti-terrorism mission. maintaining the anti-terrorism mission. we are at, i would say, the sweet spot right now, about 10,000 troops with an