ANALYSIS-US troop build-up in Afghanistan may be gaining favor
* Gates' remarks suggest he is likely to favor more troops
* Counterinsurgency plus counterterrorism approach likely
* Opinion divided about whether it will work
By Adam Entous and Phil Stewart
WASHINGTON, Oct 6 (Reuters) - The Obama administration is strongly considering a war strategy that incorporates at least some additional forces in Afghanistan alongside a stepped up campaign against al Qaeda and Taliban targets in Pakistan.
The Pentagon says Defense Secretary Robert Gates, a key player, is undecided about next steps.
But he has publicly said many of his earlier reservations about adding forces have been addressed and remains a strong proponent of counter-insurgency strategy, signals that he may be leaning toward a further buildup.
Combining an expanded counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan with more counterterrorism operations inside Pakistan's tribal areas would be consistent with the administration's existing strategy, launched in March.
Stephen Cohen, an expert at the Brookings Institution think tank, said it was "inconceivable" that Obama would abandon a counterinsurgency strategy so soon after launching it.
"This is an experimental science," he said. "We won't know if it will work until we try it."
Administration officials said, however, some changes were needed to take into account both advances by the Taliban over the last six months and U.S. doubts about President Hamid Karzai's legitimacy following August's fraud-marred election.
An alternative to the current strategy, backed by Vice President Joe Biden, would focus more narrowly on al Qaeda targets with airstrikes but officials said that did not mean the roughly 65,000 U.S. troops would be pulled out in the foreseeable future.
Obama has shown a disposition for the middle ground when other policies have run into trouble, and his Afghanistan strategy could follow the same pattern.
This approach could have political advantages at home, even if opinion is divided about whether it would be successful in the field.
Sending as many as 40,000 additional troops -- an option advocated by the top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, according to congressional officials -- could spark a backlash within the president's own Democratic party.
A smaller increase of between 10,000 and 15,000 troops, a large portion of whom would focus on training Afghan forces, would provoke some opposition from Democrats but probably not enough to force a change of course, analysts said.
Some analysts see the middle ground as the worst possible way forward, because it risks maintaining a status quo in which McChrystal has too few resources to turn the tide against the Taliban and to stem rising U.S. and NATO casualties.
Breaking ranks with fellow Democrats, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Ike Skelton, told Obama last month he would be making a mistake if he adopted a "half-ass it and hope" strategy like his predecessor, George W. Bush.
"There is a lot of interest in stripping out pieces of what General McChrystal wants to do to get the build down, get the cost down," said Stephen Biddle of the Council on Foreign Relations. But doing so, he added, would slow the build-up of Afghan security forces for an eventual handover.
Gates singled out Bush's "inability" to send enough troops to Afghanistan after the 2003 invasion of Iraq as a main reason why the Taliban insurgency has "the momentum right now."
In a roundtable with CNN aired on Tuesday, Gates warned of the consequences of letting the Taliban and al Qaeda claim victory over a "second superpower" -- the United States -- two decades after U.S.-backed mujahideen fighters forced the Soviets to withdraw.
GATES'S SHIFTING VIEWS
Gates has been a strong advocate of a counterinsurgency strategy focused more on securing Afghan public support than killing insurgents, but had expressed concerns that a larger force risked being viewed by the population as occupiers.
In recent weeks, he has said McChrystal had addressed some of those concerns.
A proposed 40,000 troop increase next year, the soonest Pentagon officials say such a build up could be carried out, would push the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan to 108,000, just below the 120,000 deployed by the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
Gates has rejected any comparison, saying the Afghans reviled the Soviets but saw the United States as "their ally and partner".
Seeking to allay worried Pakistani and Afghan leaders, Gates said on Monday: "We are not leaving Afghanistan."
U.S. officials said Obama was not being asked to choose between either a full-bore counterinsurgency backed by McChrystal or the counterterrorism option favored by Biden.
"There are all kinds of different combinations" that are under consideration, one official said.
The main risk of the hybrid option that includes a small number of new troops, analysts said, is that it would neither turn the tide, nor convince Pakistanis and Afghans that Washington is committed to doing what it takes to win.
U.S. officials have long complained privately that elements of Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency were playing both sides by supporting Taliban groups in Afghanistan. Gates said the "clear path forward" for Washington was to make clear that "we are not going to turn our backs" on Pakistan. (Additional reporting by Steve Holland and Caren Bohan, Editing by Simon Denyer and David Storey)
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