President Obama and NATO Secretary-General Agree: “Strategy First, Then Resources”

President Obama and NATO Secretary General Anders Rasmussen presented a unified front in the president’s pending decision on Afghanistan Tuesday afternoon.

The president said that he and Rasmussen discussed “the most important NATO mission right now, and that is Afghanistan.”

He defined that mission as “dismantling, disrupting, destroying the al Qaeda network” and “effectively working with the Afghan government to provide the security necessary for that country.”

Rasmussen said the “operation in Afghanistan is not America’s responsibility or burden alone.  It is and it will remain a team effort.”

The NATO Secretary-General said he agreed with President Obama’s deliberative approach to the next steps in Afghanistan: “strategy first, then resources.  The first thing is not numbers.  It is to find and fine-tune the right approach to implement the strategy already laid down, and all NATO allies are right now looking at (Gen. Stanley) McChrystal’s review.”

He added that “the normal discussion on the right approach should not be misinterpreted as lack of resolve.  This Alliance will stand united and we will stay in Afghanistan as long as it takes to finish our job.”

The two also discussed a strategic review for NATO, and missile defense.

President Obama noted that he and Rasmussen “had the opportunity to get to know each other at the NATO summit in Strasbourg, at which he was nominated and then selected as the new Secretary General of NATO,” an allusion to President Obama’s peace-making prowess in securing Turkey’s support for Rasmussen’s nomination to the NATO position given Rasmussen’s refusal to apologize for his freedom of speech stance during the 2006 controversy surrounding the publication of cartoons of the prophet Mohammed.

-jpt