Retired Gen. Colin Powell, in an exclusive interview with me on “The Tom Joyner Morning Show,” said he advised President Barack Obama to take all the time he needs on deciding to send more troops to Afghanistan and not to bend to the will of partisans on the political left or right.

Powell -- a 35-year Army veteran, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and later secretary of state -- said that whatever decision Obama makes “will have consequences for years to come.”

“If you decide to send more troops or if that’s what you feel is necessary, make sure you have a good understanding of what those troops are going to be doing and some assurance that the additional troops will be successful,” Powell said he told Obama. “You can’t guarantee success in a very complex theater like Afghanistan and increasingly with the Pakistan problem next door. But you have to have some sense of what these additional troops will be able to do.”

Obama is meeting with his national security team and weighing the request by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, for as many as 40,000 troops to advance the war on terror there. A CNN/Opinion Research poll shows the nation split over whether the president is taking too long to decide.

One of the president’s biggest critics, former Vice President Dick Cheney, has ripped the White House for “dithering” on the request, saying Obama must show leadership and heed the call of his general on the ground.

Yet Powell, who often tangled with Cheney during his time as secretary of state under President George W. Bush, said Obama must also weigh the political situation on the ground in Afghanistan, where there are allegations of widespread corruption.

“You’ve got to make sure that you are putting this commitment on a solid base, and the base is a little soft right now. You’ve got a president in Afghanistan that had a rough election -- a lot of corruption associated with the election, a lot of corruption in the government,” Powell said. “(Afghan President Hamid) Karzai has been told -- and I know him very well ... ‘You’ve got to do something about this. You’ve got to do something about the drug problem, and you’ve got to start pulling the Afghan people together.’

“And so the president has to measure that. What kind of base is he putting this new strategy on? Because it isn’t just what we do; what do the Afghans do? And as I said a moment ago, it’s made particularly difficult because of the unstable situation along the Pakistan border and in Pakistan.”

Powell admitted that the decision facing Obama is a difficult one.

“It isn’t just a one-time decision,” Powell said. “This is the decision that will have consequences for the better part of his administration. So, Mr. President, don’t get pushed by the left to do nothing; don’t get pushed by the right to do everything. You take your time, and you figure it out.

“You’re the commander in chief, and this is what you were elected for.”

Roland S. Martin is a CNN contributor and a talk show host for WVON/AM in Chicago.

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