Afghanistan/McChrystal Analysis: Hyperventilating Over the Tip, Missing the (Petraeus) Iceberg

Little to report overnight in the saga of General Stanley McChrystal, the US commander in Afghanistan, and his interview --- replete with jibes and insults at the Obama Administration by McChrystal and his aides --- with Rolling Stone magazine.

NEW Afghanistan Revealed: US Hands Over Millions of $$$…To “Warlords” (DeYoung)
Afghanistan Special: McChrystal and the Trashing of the President (US Military v. Obama, Chapter 472)
Afghanistan Document: The McChrystal Profile (Hastings — Rolling Stone)

In advance of his meeting with McChrystal today, President Obama said, ""I think it's clear that the article in which he and his team appeared showed a poor - showed poor judgment. But I also want to make sure that I talk to him directly before I make any final decisions." Obama then re-stated his key talking point, beyond any Rolling Stone obstacle:

I want everybody to keep in mind what our central focus is - and that is success in making sure that al-Qaida and its affiliates cannot attack the United States and its allies. And we've got young men and women there who are making enormous sacrifices, families back home who are making enormous sacrifices,

And so whatever decision that I make with respect to Gen. McChrystal - or any other aspect of Afghan policy - is determined entirely on how I can make sure that we have a strategy that justifies the enormous courage and sacrifice that those men and women are making over there and that ultimately makes this country safer.

Obama's statement capped an extraordinary day for Washington watchers. From before dawn, when some media outlets posted soundbites from the Rolling Stone profile, to bedtime, all other news fell before the chatter about McChrystal. (The biggest winner from yesterday's furour? It could be British Petroleum, who suddenly found that they were not the lead story in the US.)

It was a classic frenzy in which token moves began banner headlines. McChrystal had called Administration officials to apologise. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said he was concerned. The editor of Rolling Stone and the author of the piece, Michael Hastings, became media superstars for a day. Joe Klein of Time, using the time-worn device of an "unnamed source", seized centre stage by saying he most definitely knew McChrystal would resign.

That in turn left us with the white noise of "Will he/won't he? Should he/shouldn't he?" Hours of airtime and pages of print could be filled by simply re-wording the regretful conclusion: he's not the military Messiah, he's just a naughty boy.

When "perspective" was sought, it often verged on the historically ridiculous. Some journalists sought an analogy with President Truman's recall of General Douglas MacArthur in 1951, which might have been appropriate if McChrystal had threatened World War III by bombing China, bringing US forces to the verge of defeat, and calling for use of nuclear weapons.

OK, so what's the big deal? The media gets its drama. The Obama Administration buys time with statements to figure out how it is going to finesse the treatment of McChrystal, since 1) his firing/resignation or 2) his retention will bring another news cycle of criticism. And, apart from one press aide to the General, no one pays an immediate price.

Well, to be blunt: the story is not McChrystal and his boys laughing at Vice President Biden, declaring that the President is a fumbling ingenue, or sneering at their supporters like "old man" John McCain. Perhaps the most wayward statement from an "analyst" was the lament, "You think he's being fired for a pattern....He's being fired for an ARTICLE."

Wrong. Shrewder observers, drowned out in yesterday's clamour, know that the sticks-and-stones behind McChrystal's name-calling is the ongoing military battle to maintain policy supremacy over the civilians from the State Department to the US Embassy in Afghanistan to President Obama.

Twice Obama tried to set limits on a military-first approach to defeating the Taliban/extremists/Al Qa'eda/insurgents in Afghanistan. The day he entered office, having declared that he would seek a resolution to a US intervention which seemed to be going nowhere, the military presented him with three options, all of which called for an increase in US forces. Obama tried to curb the rush to escalation but gave way in March 2009 with a "limited" increase of 30,000 troops and support units.

Then the President, through National Security Advisor Jim Jones (the "clown stuck in 1985", according to a McChrystal aide), tried to draw the line: ask for any more soldiers and I will stare you out with "WTF?"

The outcome? The commanders called Obama's bluff: they said the intervention would be lost without another escalation, and they got the President's acceptance in December.

There was one headline caveat, however: Obama indicated --- to what degree of firmness depends on who is interpreting --- that the US forces would come out by July 2011.

McChrystal does not like that deadline. Nor does his boss.

That boss --- the head of US Central Command, General David Petraeus  --- was the dog who did not bark yesterday. Less than a week after testifying to Congressmen, leaving the clear impression that US forces would have to remain beyond July next year, Petraeus issued no statement, saw no reporters, provided no leaks.

If there is an important media angle here, it is this difference between McChrystal and Petraeus: the latter is far too clever in the ways of Washington to let a Rolling Stone reporter tail after him, putting verbal indiscretions on the record.

It is that difference in tactics --- not tactics against the Taliban, but tactics in the talking shops of Washington --- that means McChrystal is the point man in this US campaign, and he is expendable. After all, he got his current position after another American commander, General David McKiernan, was thrown under the bus last year.

Petraeus is in a different position. Having risen through the command ranks in Iraq, seizing the glory because of the mythical "surge", he is now at the apex of field authority. Afghanistan is his to win or lose.

His to win or lose, beyond and possibly despite the President. For --- take a look through EA's archives --- the spinning from January 2009 against Obama's limits has come from Petraeus and his allies, either at distance from Central Asia or in the corridors of Washington.

When the tip of this "crisis" is gone, that iceberg will remain.

Comments

[WitteKr]

Excellent analysis, Scott! One of the questions that haunted me ("How could he, McChrystal, haven been so stupid?") was answered eloquently in this article: http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/all_sites/category/one_time_tags/can_mcchrystal_survive" rel="nofollow">http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/all_sites/categor.... There too, we find this passage:
"The underlying facts are not surprising or accidental at all. Anyone who has interacted with the military, especially the special ops community from which McChrystal hails, will recognize the swagger. More to the point, we have known for over a year that Obama's national security team is plagued with serious internal bickering and that many of the principals, and especially the staffs, do not like each other. In short, it is not surprising that they talked this way."

[Megan]

I believe this was intended to be yet another test for Obama. It is a no-win situation irrespective of what he does with McChrystal.

[Catherine]

Muhammad Sahimi has posted a detailed examination of Obama's outreach to the Islamic world: 'The Audacity of Hoax: Obama and the Islamic World'

On June 4, 2009, President Obama spoke directly to the Islamic world to outline his new policy toward the Muslims. Calling it a new beginning, and speaking to the Egyptian parliament in Cairo, the President made many promises to the Muslims. This was hailed by many as a turning point in the relations between the United States and the Islamic world.

But, was it, really? A little over a year has passed since the Cairo speech and, therefore, it is time to examine whether the relations between the United States and the Islamic world have improved, or are about the same as during the George W. Bush administration, or they have actually deteriorated further.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/muhammad-sahimi/the-audacity-of-hoax-obam_b_621876.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/muhammad-sahimi/t...

[WitteKr]

@Catherine, it gets even worse... "It can seem that at the heart of Barack Obama's foreign policy is no heart at all. It consists instead of a series of challenges - of problems that need fixing, not wrongs that need to be righted. As Winston Churchill once said of a certain pudding, Obama's approach to foreign affairs lacks theme. So, it seems, does the man himself." A devastating opening of an op-ed yesterday 22 June, by Richard Cohen in the Washington Post.

"Obama's opaqueness has enabled his enemies - they are not mere critics - to define him as they choose. He becomes a socialist, which he is not, or a Muslim, which he also is not. Even his allies are confused. The left thought he was a leftie. He's not. The right, too, thought he was a leftie. He is, above all, a pragmatist."

"Fortune has not smiled on Obama's presidency. His one uncontested attribute - a shimmering intellect - has become suspect. A world of smart guys has turned against us. Everyone at Goldman Sachs is smart, (...) the oil industry is full of smart people, and so is the mortgage industry. Smart people seem to have brought us nothing but trouble. Smarts without values is dangerous - threatening, scary, virtually un-American."

"Pragmatism is fine - as long as it is complicated by regret. But that indispensable wince is precisely what Obama doesn't show. It is not essential that he get angry or cry. It is essential, though, that he show us who he is. As of now, we haven't a clue."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/21/AR2010062103698.html?nav=rss_opinion/columns&wpisrc=xs_sl_0001" rel="nofollow">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ar... Just sign up and you get access to the article for free.

[Catherine]

WitteKr,
I think back during the presidential campaign eben Obama himself said something to the effect that he was likeb a canvas on which people could project the man they wanted to see.

You know I have no problem with pragmatism. I have a huge problem with incoherence, mixed messages, contradictory policies, a strategic review ordered before the "new US Afghanistan Strategy" that 90 nations signed on to in The Hague was even implemented, and "waan van de dag" guiding policy-making.