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.

UPDATE Afghanistan Special: McChrystal and the Trashing of the President (US Military v. Obama, Chapter 472)

UPDATE 1945 GMT: So who is defending General McChrystal? Well, let's go to Kabul for a statement from a spokesman: "[Hamid Karzai] strongly supports McChrystal and his strategy in Afghanistan and believes he is the best commander the United States has sent to Afghanistan over the last nine years."

UPDATE 1830 GMT: Thumbs Down from the White House? Or Just a Bit of Posturing?

The stingers from the statement of White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, "All options are on the table [including McChrystal's resignation]....The magnitude and graveness of the mistake here are profound.”

Afghanistan Document: The McChrystal Profile (Hastings — Rolling Stone)

Gibbs said he gave an advance copy of the article, which had already gone out to the press, to Obama last night. The President was "irked".

Gibbs said the president wants to know “what in the world he was thinking.”

And here's Secretary of Defense Gates' careful statement:

I read with concern the profile piece on Gen. Stanley McChrystal in the upcoming edition of ‘Rolling Stone’ magazine. I believe that Gen. McChrystal made a significant mistake and exercised poor judgment in this case. We are fighting a war against al Qaeda and its extremist allies, who directly threaten the United States, Afghanistan, and our friends and allies around the world. Going forward, we must pursue this mission with a unity of purpose. Our troops and coalition partners are making extraordinary sacrifices on behalf of our security, and our singular focus must be on supporting them and succeeding in Afghanistan without such distractions. Gen. McChrystal has apologized to me and is similarly reaching out to others named in this article to apologize to them as well. I have recalled Gen. McChrystal to Washington to discuss this in person.

UPDATE 1740 GMT: Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has issued a far-from-robust defence of General McChrystal. He expressed "concern" over the "significant" mistake of the Rolling Stone interview.

McChrystal also may have lost the backing of key Senators like former Presidential candidate John McCain former Vice Presidential candidate Joseph , ieberman, and Lindsay Graham, who called the General's remarks "inappropriate, inconsistent with relationship between the Commander-in-Chief and the military".

UPDATE 1450 GMT: The executive editor of Rolling Stone says that General McChrystal was shown the advance copy of the profile and raised no objections.

UPDATE 1230 GMT: Department of Defense officials say General McChrystal has fired a press aide over the Rolling Stone episode.

The US Embassy in Afghanistan, despite the military's ridicule of Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, has maintained that Eikenberry and General McChrystal "are both fully committed" to President Obama's Afghan strategy and are working together to "implement" the plan.

UPDATE 1200 GMT: Five minutes after posting this, with the projection of a "quick cover-up" of the episode: "Top administration official says McChrystal has personally called Vice President Biden, [Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff] Mullen, [Secretary of Defense] Gates, and NSC advisor Jones to apologize."

In the first week of Barack Obama's Presidency, we noted that his senior military commanders were trying to alter his policies in key areas, to the point of undermining him. We noted their opposition to his plans to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and his timetable for withdrawal from Iraq and their determination to escalate the military intervention in Afghanistan.

That challenge has continued for almost 18 months with Obama --- in my view --- getting "rolled over" on the Afghanistan issue as he twice conceded to the demands for troop escalation.

That is the background to today's hot media story. Rolling Stone magazine has released advance copies of an interview with General Stanley McChrystal, the US commander in Afghanistan. The soundbites are so explosive that McChrystal has already issued his "sincerest apology" for "a mistake reflecting poor judgement". He is flying back to Washington, reportedly for a meeting with the President.

All very dramatic. It's far from surprising, however: if this is to be more than a shiny bauble for the media, McChrystal's interview --- when it is released in full on Friday --- will need to be considered as far from "a mistake". It is part of the ongoing military contest with Obama.

Consider the soundbites from the advance copies of the interview.

1. Taking on the President. McChrystal and an aide refer to a 2009 meeting with Obama. The aide belittles the President for "a 10-minute photo op": "Obama clearly didn't know anything about him, who he was... he didn't seem very engaged. The boss was pretty disappointed."

Gen McChrystal says, "I found that time painful. I was selling an unsellable position."

Hmm... McChrystal's pain smacks of a self-serving "poor me" pose. His supposed weariness over the "unsellable" is a bit ironic, given that McChrystal's visit was quite likely the ultimate in sales jobs: he was pitching for the increase in troop deployments that Obama granted in December.

2. Dismissing the Vice-President. Joe Biden may have tried to assert his authority with personal visits to Afghanistan but this snapshot from Rolling Stone portrays a military smacking his annoyance aside.

"Are you asking about Vice-President Biden?" McChrystal asks. 'Who's that?"

An aide then says: "Biden? Did you say: Bite Me?"

3. Trampling on the Ambassador. One of the high-profile episodes in that battle occurred last autumn, when a memorandum from the US Ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry (a retired General), was leaked. It questioned the drive for military escalation, given fundamental political problems and corruption in Afghanistan.

McChrystal's considered reaction? "I like Karl, I've known him for years, but they'd never said anything like that to us before. Here's one that covers his flank for the history books. Now if we fail, they can say, 'I told you so'."

4. Dismissing the Advisors. Last August, in an effort to check the military's drive for more troops, National Security Advisor James Jones --- another former General --- went to Kabul and warned commanders that, if they pushed for escalation so soon after March's build-up of forces, Obama would ask, "WTF [What the F***]?"

The view of Jones from McChrystal's aide? "A clown stuck in 1985".

And here's the respect that Obama's special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, gets. Told of an incoming message, McChrystal says: "Oh, not another e-mail from Holbrooke....I don't even want to open it."

Only Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, it appears, gets approval from McChrystal's staff.

Now, a lot of this might be put down to day-to-day tensions in the difficult environment of Afghanistan. But --- and this is the point that seems to be eluding the media so far --- these examples of anger, impertinence, disrespect, and near-subversion of the President's authority did not occur in the heat of the moment.

They were offered, after the event, to a reporter as the "real" impressions of senior members of the US military.

That's not frustration. That's a deliberate challenge, in an ongoing campaign to challenge, to the President.

As McChrystal flies to Washington, possibly for a quick cover-up of the episode by all concerned, it needs to be remembered as such. For deliberate challenges do not suddenly evaporate.