Tuesday
Aug032010
Video & Analysis: Obama "Iraq Withdrawal" Speech Covers Up Shift on Afghanistan
Tuesday, August 3, 2010 at 8:13
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOkayW8BG0U[/youtube]
The headline from Barack Obama's speech on Monday to a war veterans' organisation is that he reaffirmed the commitment to "withdrawal" from Iraq: "I made it clear that by Aug. 31, 2010, America’s combat mission in Iraq would end. And that is exactly what we are doing, as promised and on schedule.” The official US troop level will be 50,000, compared to 144,000 in January 2009.
On the surface, the President's statement is a reassurance that he will stick to his campaign promise to get the US out of its ill-advised "war of choice". A more cynical assessment would be that his Administration is also carrying out a double sleight-of-hand.
One of the manoeuvres is to take attention away from an American military presence which will persist in Iraq. Obama's statement did not deal with the 50,000 troops who stay on in US bases that were constructed not for a short-term conflict but for a long-term "projection of power". And, as Jeremy Scahill has pointed, the number of "private" US contractors and support units in the country is increasing.
Even more importantly and immediately, Obama's re-affirmation on Iraq tucks away a major change in US policy on Afghanistan. The recent commitment of NATO countries to maintain military forces until 2014 --- despite the pullout by some participants such as Holland --- was also an effective, though unstated, move by the US to set aside its mid-2011 "deadline" for withdrawal of combat forces.
The New York Times points to this linkage in its report but gets the Obama strategy all wrong: "President Obama on Monday opened a monthlong drive to mark the end of the combat mission in Iraq and, by extension, to blunt growing public frustration with the war in Afghanistan by arguing that he can also bring that conflict to a conclusion." In fact, "conclusion" in Iraq is being used to mask what is a longer-term, if not open-ended, commitment to Afghanistan.
The President did not ignore Afghanistan and Pakistan in his speech. To the contrary, he repeatedly used his now-standard invocation of "extremists" and "Al Qa'eda" --- even though there are few "Al Qa'eda" in Afghanistan --- who will plot and carry out another attack on the United States. He assured that the US was going on the offensive against the enemy and he restated the declaration --- increasingly thread-bare --- of a civilian front in which good governance would be achieved and corruption would be defeated. But he never moved from this general portrayal to define what this means on the ground, not just next year but beyond.
Some will argue that this was Obama's promise all along, with the campaign statement of trading in Iraq's "bad" war for the "good" fight in Afghanistan and Pakistan against "extremists".
Wrong. This was a President who said, as he stepped into the White House, that US fighting units would be out of both conflicts by 2011. The sleight-of-hand in this speech is that this commitment has now been erased.
LATEST Iraq Video and Transcript: President Obama Declares End of US Combat Mission (31 August)
The headline from Barack Obama's speech on Monday to a war veterans' organisation is that he reaffirmed the commitment to "withdrawal" from Iraq: "I made it clear that by Aug. 31, 2010, America’s combat mission in Iraq would end. And that is exactly what we are doing, as promised and on schedule.” The official US troop level will be 50,000, compared to 144,000 in January 2009.
Afghanistan: Deeper into Stalemate? (Randall/Owen)
On the surface, the President's statement is a reassurance that he will stick to his campaign promise to get the US out of its ill-advised "war of choice". A more cynical assessment would be that his Administration is also carrying out a double sleight-of-hand.
One of the manoeuvres is to take attention away from an American military presence which will persist in Iraq. Obama's statement did not deal with the 50,000 troops who stay on in US bases that were constructed not for a short-term conflict but for a long-term "projection of power". And, as Jeremy Scahill has pointed, the number of "private" US contractors and support units in the country is increasing.
Even more importantly and immediately, Obama's re-affirmation on Iraq tucks away a major change in US policy on Afghanistan. The recent commitment of NATO countries to maintain military forces until 2014 --- despite the pullout by some participants such as Holland --- was also an effective, though unstated, move by the US to set aside its mid-2011 "deadline" for withdrawal of combat forces.
The New York Times points to this linkage in its report but gets the Obama strategy all wrong: "President Obama on Monday opened a monthlong drive to mark the end of the combat mission in Iraq and, by extension, to blunt growing public frustration with the war in Afghanistan by arguing that he can also bring that conflict to a conclusion." In fact, "conclusion" in Iraq is being used to mask what is a longer-term, if not open-ended, commitment to Afghanistan.
The President did not ignore Afghanistan and Pakistan in his speech. To the contrary, he repeatedly used his now-standard invocation of "extremists" and "Al Qa'eda" --- even though there are few "Al Qa'eda" in Afghanistan --- who will plot and carry out another attack on the United States. He assured that the US was going on the offensive against the enemy and he restated the declaration --- increasingly thread-bare --- of a civilian front in which good governance would be achieved and corruption would be defeated. But he never moved from this general portrayal to define what this means on the ground, not just next year but beyond.
Some will argue that this was Obama's promise all along, with the campaign statement of trading in Iraq's "bad" war for the "good" fight in Afghanistan and Pakistan against "extremists".
Wrong. This was a President who said, as he stepped into the White House, that US fighting units would be out of both conflicts by 2011. The sleight-of-hand in this speech is that this commitment has now been erased.
tagged Barack Obama, Jeremy Scahill, New York Times in Afghanistan, Iraq
Barack Obama, Jeremy Scahill, New York Times in Afghanistan, Iraq