Afghanistan Follow-Up: Civil War in the Obama Administration

Afghanistan Special: The Obama Administration Breaks Apart Over Military Escalation
Afghanistan Video: Obama Rejects “All Military Options”?

Receive our latest updates by email or RSS SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FEED
Buy Us A Cup of Coffee? Help Enduring America Expand Its Coverage and Analysis



UPDATE 1525 GMT: Spencer Ackerman has now retracted his original story that the anti-Eikenberry statement --- "he has a beef with McChrystal" --- came from a National Security Council staffer who was at the NSC meeting on Wednesday, although "my original source for the post stands by the account provided". Pity that Ackerman doesn't then ask the follow-up question: "How bad are relations within the White House over Afghanistan that officials are slinging mud by passing on 'information' from others who were in the high-level discussions?"

Yesterday we reported on the sudden emergence of the rift within the US Government over military escalation in Afghanistan. This was symbolised by the leaking of the call by the US Ambassador,  Karl Eikenberry, for no troop increase because of the instability of the Afghan Government and, more importantly, established by President Obama's reported "rejection" of all four proposals --- ranging from an escalation of 15,000 troops to a fulfilment of US commander Stanley McChrystal's request for 40,000 --- on the table.

24 hours later and the dispute rages on. The immediate reaction was an effort by pro-escalation forces to trash Eikenberry by claiming “he leaked his own cables” because “he has a beef with McChrystal" and alleging that the mess in Afghanistan occurred during Eikenberry's tenure as military commander between 2005 and 2007. Meanwhile, those inside the White House (note, not inside the US Embassy but inside the White House) are maintaining the pressure against an acceptance of any significant troop increase by criticising both sides of the Af-Pak strategy: "Do we have any assurances of what Pakistan will do? At least in Iraq, you had some functioning government there at the time of the surge. In Afghanistan, there is no government there."

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is trying to hold the Administration together with the insistence that a National Security meeting yesterday focused on progress rather than retribution: “I would say it was more, how can we combine some of the best features of several of the options to maximum good effect? So there is a little more work to do, but I think we’re getting toward the end of the process.” Yet Gates also hinted at the growing doubts about the Kabul Government that have first delayed and now jeopardised an acceptance of the McChrystal recommendations, “How do we signal resolve, and at the same time signal to the Afghans, as well as the American people, that this is not an open-ended commitment?”

In the coverage today, however, no one is coming back to the question: who leaked the Eikenberry objections? And no one is picking up on the significance of that leak and the disputes of this week.

The tensions between the White House, other agencies, and the US military have been present since Obama took office in January. Here's the difference now: those tensions may now have become the primary issue, overtaking any specific decision on troop levels in Afghanistan. If the President finally authorises the 40,000, he will be seen as caving in to the pressure of the military, disregarding not only advisors such as Eikenberry but sceptics within his White House. If he refuses escalation or offers only a token increase, he will incur the wrath of commanders who are willing to "spin" against him and their allies in the media ("Obama the ditherer"; "Obama the appeaser"). If he tries to split the difference, he will get the worst of both worlds --- loyalists like Gates will try to prop him up, but Obama will be facing objections (mainly through more leaks) from within the White House and within other departments.

That is why the most significant part of Gates's statement to the press yesterday was not his "Don't Worry, All is On Course for A Decision", but his warning to those out of line in the the Administration: “I have been appalled by the amount of leaking that has been going on in this process....A lot of different places are leaking...[and I am] confident that the Department of Defense is one of them....And frankly if I found out with high confidence anybody who was leaking in the Department of Defense, who that was, that would probably be a career ender.”

Which, in "normal" times, might be enough to put everyone and everything back in line. But Afghanistan --- in symbolism and in political reality --- is beyond normal, and this civil war is now beyond even an Enforcer like Gates.

Afghanistan Special: The Obama Administration Breaks Apart Over Military Escalation

Afghanistan Video: Obama Rejects “All Military Options”?
Afghanistan: The Pentagon (and US Companies) Dig In for “Long War”
Afghanistan: A US-Pakistan Deal? Karzai Stays, Talks with the Taliban
The US in Afghanistan: “The Long War” Still Waits for a Strategy

Receive our latest updates by email or RSS SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FEED
Buy Us A Cup of Coffee? Help Enduring America Expand Its Coverage and Analysis

And no, that is not too dramatic a headline.

Twenty-four hours ago, everything was A-OK in the Obama Administration: "Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton [were] coalescing around a proposal to send 30,000 or more additional American troops to Afghanistan." OK, maybe "President Obama remain[ed] unsatisfied with answers he has gotten about how vigorously the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan would help execute a new strategy," but each of the four options on the table provided for some increase in the US military presence. The issues were "how much of Afghanistan the troops would seek to control and different time frames and expectations for the training of Afghan security forces".

And then all that coalescing fell apart.

This morning's New York Times reveals, "The United States ambassador to Afghanistan, who once served as the top American military commander there, has expressed in writing his reservations about deploying additional troops to the country, three senior American officials said Wednesday."

So "the position of the ambassador, Karl W. Eikenberry, a retired lieutenant general, puts him in stark opposition to the current American and NATO commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who has asked for 40,000 more troops". But even that is merely a dramatic support for a bigger indication of the divisions in the Administration?

Who were the "three senior American officials" who leaked Eikenberry's memorandum?

Presumably Gates, Clinton, and Mullen, given their reported acceptance of most of the McChrystal increase, would not be spreading secrets to undermine the proposal. So is Vice President Joe Biden, who has been held up as the chief opponent of an intensive escalation for "counter-insurgency" with his preference a targeted "counter-terrorism" effort, trying to sabotage the four options? What about special envoy Richard Holbrooke, who has no love for Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai and bitterly fell out with him after the August Presidential election, given Eikenberry's reported "strong concerns about...Karzai’s reliability as a partner and corruption in his government"?

The mystery will be pored over, without an answer, in the next days. Even more important, however, is the apparent effect of the Eikenberry objections on the President. The White House spin, after yesterday's eighth review conference on the Afghanistan options, is that no decision has been taken but that the President is making clear that the US commitment to the Karzai Government is not "open-ended". That's far from a ringing endorsement, either for the US ally in Kabul or for McChrystal's plan.

Indeed, if I was putting 2+2 together to make more than 4, I would add a question for detective journalists, "Who is to say that those 'senior officials' who ensured the Eikenberry memo went public this morning are not on Obama's White House staff?"

For months I expected this political kabuki, for all the appearances of Administration tensions, differing proposals, and persistent doubts, to end in the "compromise" of a troop increase that would meet most of McChrystal's demands. After all, that was the script in March when Obama approved the escalation of 30,000 more US soldiers and support units.

Now, however, that expectation is suspended. I would not go as far as the Associated Press report that the President "has rejected all military options" (see video in separate entry); supporters of a troop increase will not go away quietly, so there are further chapters in this political story.

Instead, Obama is buying himself some time with his trip to Asia, declaring that no decision will be taken before his return to Washington next week, even as those pressing for escalation scream, "Ditherer". Yet there is a glimmer --- if only a glimmer --- that the President may draw the line on the upward spiral of US military intervention.