Afghanistan Analysis: Can Obama Control His Generals? (Mull)

EA correspondent Josh Mull, writing at The Seminal, parallels our coverage of the ongoing battle within the Obama Administration --- which has so far ended in victory for military commanders --- over escalation in Afghanistan:

One of the best parts of learning about foreign countries and their cultures is the sudden realization that these places aren’t actually foreign at all. You’re not studying an opaque alien world, you’re only looking in the mirror. As Americans, it fills us with hope to look across at, say, our progressive allies in Pakistanand note that they’re working hard, just like us, to correct and reform their country’s policies. But are we also capable of seeing the negative parallels? It’s all well and good to lecture the Pakistanis about total military subservience to a strong civilian government, but what about our own weak President and our own anti-democratic generals?

Afghanistan/Iraq/Iran Video and Transcript: Petraeus Doubtful Over 2011 Drawdown?

American military officials are building a case to minimise the planned withdrawal of some troops from Afghanistan starting next summer, in an effort to counter growing pressure on President Obama from inside his own party to begin winding the war down quickly.

With the administration unable yet to point to much tangible evidence of progress, Gen. David H. Petraeus, who assumed command in Afghanistan last month from Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, is taking several steps to emphasize hopeful signs on the ground that, he will argue, would make a rapid withdrawal unwise. Meanwhile, a rising generation of young officers, who have become experts over the past nine years in the art of counterinsurgency, have begun quietly telling administration officials that they need time to get their work done.

When something like this happens in Pakistan, we completely lose our s**t and call them a failed state, a tyrannical dictatorship, a collapsing nuclear-armed time bomb full of apocalyptic religious fanatics and corrupt, out-of-touch plutocrats. When it happens here, it’s called a "media blitz." Oh you know, General Petraeus is just out there to "counter the growing pressure" by the American people, and hopefully force the Commander-in-Chief’s hand on war making policy. The young officer corps is simply pressuring yourelected politicians to give them more time to occupy foreign lands and engage in aggressive wars. Totally normal, everything is fine.

It’s time for Congress to wake up. Petraeus needs to be reminded of exactly who he works for. The generals don’t tell us what to do, we tell them what to do. This is not Pakistan, this is the United States, and if President Obama is too weak to preserve our civilian-military order, then Congress is obligated to enforce its constitutional authority over the power – and the purse – of war.

Petraeus is openly declaring that he did not go to Afghanistan to oversee a "graceful exit," apparently unaware that he’s not the one who gets to decide that. He’s even out of sync with the Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates (h/t Steve):

"There is no question in anybody’s mind that we are going to begin drawing down troops in July of 2011," Gates told The Los Angeles Times.

But Petraeus, asked in a separate interview whether he could reach that juncture and have to recommend a delay to Obama because of the conditions on the ground, replied: "Certainly, yeah."

As Bernard Finel writes, it appears it’s time for Petraeus to "resign his commission and run for office." Only our elected representatives, responsible to us, can make the kind of decisions Petraeus is throwing around on Meet the Press. Civilians make policy, and if the generals fail to keep their noses out, they get fired:

The conduct represented in the recently published article does not meet the standard that should be set by a commanding general. It undermines the civilian control of the military that is at the core of our democratic system. And it erodes the trust that’s necessary for our team to work together to achieve our objectives in Afghanistan.

That’s President Obama, referring to his firing of General Stanley McChrystal. McChrystal wasn’t going on a "media blitz" and openly refuting the President, he just had a few comments in one article. Yet with Petraeus, Obama appears helpless and subservient to the general. McChrystal, it seems, was not an exception, but part of a wider pattern. We have a weak executive whose authority is being assaulted and hijacked by rogue generals. McChrystal lost the fight, but Petraeus pushes on toward a serious crisis in our country’s civilian-military order.

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Comments

[Tony]

Can Obama control his generals? No.