Similarly, our effort to build the Afghan National Security Forces — which was under-resourced and disorganized four years ago — has been overhauled. Growing numbers of Afghan units are increasingly capable of leading the fight. The examples of the few Afghan soldiers who despicably turned their weapons on Americans should not obscure the fact that hundreds of thousands of Afghans fight every day as our faithful allies in a common battle against al-Qaeda and the Taliban and that these Afghan patriots are wounded and killed in far greater numbers than our forces. Afghans bear an overwhelming and increasing share of this war. This should give us hope that our common goal, an Afghanistan that can secure and govern itself, remains achievable over time.

To sustain this fragile progress, it is critical that President Obama resist the shortsighted calls for additional troop reductions, which would guarantee failure. Our forces are slated to draw down to 68,000 by September — a faster pace than our military commanders recommended, which has significantly increased the risks for our mission. At a minimum, there should be a pause after September to assess the impact of the drawdown. It would be much better to maintain the 68,000 forces through next year’s fighting season, possibly longer.

At the strategic level, our effort continues to be undermined by the perception that the United States will again abandon Afghanistan. This suspicion makes everything our troops are trying to achieve significantly harder. It creates perverse incentives for the Taliban to keep fighting, for the Pakistani army to hedge its bets by providing support to the Taliban, and for our Afghan allies to make counterproductive decisions based on fears of a post-American future.