Monday
Sep212009
The Afghanistan Routine (Again): Obama Cautious, Military Insistent, 25,000 More Troops Sent
Monday, September 21, 2009 at 10:20
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Enduring America, 5 September: "Obama history is only repeating itself....A period of intense debate with US commanders pushing for as big a troop increase as possible, and Obama’s advisors spinning back to limit the escalation....The immediate culmination, with a “compromise” of an additional 30,000 American forces (complementing a rise in private “security” units and contractors). You will find it justified by the rhetoric that we must fight Al Qa’eda and extremists in Afghanistan so they will not terrorise us “here” and supported by the promise that this is a combination of non-military and military steps to bring stability and progress to the Afghan people."
UPDATED 1545 GMT: Washington chatter is buzzing about the initial source of today's "McChrystal: More Forces or 'Mission Failure'" story, Bob Woodward of the Washington Post. The pillow fight will be over whether Woodward was right to run with a report leaked to him by a Government insider.
All this will miss the point. Woodward, the reporter of Watergate fame, has become Rent-a-Journalist for whichever side in the Government wants to turn the wind their way on a story. So this summer he was the outlet for the Obama Administration's insistence that they would ask, "WTF [What the F***]?" on any demand for a troop increase. This time he could be serving those who want to push the military's case for the boost or Administration insiders who want to uphold the line that they will not be bumped.
Doesn't really matter. In the end, we'll get to the settlement which will give the military what it wants while allowing Obama advisors to preserve the image that they have kept a lid on the escalation.
I really can't be bothered to spill a lot of words on the latest development in US strategy towards Afghanistan. Why bother to go through 400+ pages of a supposed mystery when you've seen the "surprise" ending in the final paragraphs? President Obama plays the cautious line, in his media blitz yesterday (here and here and here), of no decision taken yet but tips his hand with the rhetoric of "Must Fight Al Qa'eda". His military, just to make the President isn't so cautious that he might actually rule against them in the purported review of strategy, ensure that high-profile US outlets like The New York Times carry the message today, "General [McChrystal, the top US commander in Afghanistan] Calls for More U.S. Troops to Avoid Afghan Failure". The White House undoubtedly will put out its response, for tomorrow's newspapers, that discussions continue under the eye of a President wanting to make sure all dimensions are considered.
And sometime in the next month or two, the "compromise" will be announced of 25,000 more US troops to Afghanistan.
Please, it's bad enough being depressed about this spin cycle. At least don't bore me with repetition.
Buy Us A Cup of Coffee? Help Enduring America Expand Its Coverage and Analysis
Enduring America, 5 September: "Obama history is only repeating itself....A period of intense debate with US commanders pushing for as big a troop increase as possible, and Obama’s advisors spinning back to limit the escalation....The immediate culmination, with a “compromise” of an additional 30,000 American forces (complementing a rise in private “security” units and contractors). You will find it justified by the rhetoric that we must fight Al Qa’eda and extremists in Afghanistan so they will not terrorise us “here” and supported by the promise that this is a combination of non-military and military steps to bring stability and progress to the Afghan people."UPDATED 1545 GMT: Washington chatter is buzzing about the initial source of today's "McChrystal: More Forces or 'Mission Failure'" story, Bob Woodward of the Washington Post. The pillow fight will be over whether Woodward was right to run with a report leaked to him by a Government insider.
All this will miss the point. Woodward, the reporter of Watergate fame, has become Rent-a-Journalist for whichever side in the Government wants to turn the wind their way on a story. So this summer he was the outlet for the Obama Administration's insistence that they would ask, "WTF [What the F***]?" on any demand for a troop increase. This time he could be serving those who want to push the military's case for the boost or Administration insiders who want to uphold the line that they will not be bumped.
Doesn't really matter. In the end, we'll get to the settlement which will give the military what it wants while allowing Obama advisors to preserve the image that they have kept a lid on the escalation.
I really can't be bothered to spill a lot of words on the latest development in US strategy towards Afghanistan. Why bother to go through 400+ pages of a supposed mystery when you've seen the "surprise" ending in the final paragraphs? President Obama plays the cautious line, in his media blitz yesterday (here and here and here), of no decision taken yet but tips his hand with the rhetoric of "Must Fight Al Qa'eda". His military, just to make the President isn't so cautious that he might actually rule against them in the purported review of strategy, ensure that high-profile US outlets like The New York Times carry the message today, "General [McChrystal, the top US commander in Afghanistan] Calls for More U.S. Troops to Avoid Afghan Failure". The White House undoubtedly will put out its response, for tomorrow's newspapers, that discussions continue under the eye of a President wanting to make sure all dimensions are considered.
And sometime in the next month or two, the "compromise" will be announced of 25,000 more US troops to Afghanistan.
Please, it's bad enough being depressed about this spin cycle. At least don't bore me with repetition.
Reader Comments (3)
Obama's political base is predominantly anti-war. But if he pulls out he'll lose a lot of independent support when the Republicans tar him for having "lost" Afghanistan. The mood in America may currently be anti-war, but Americans like Presidents who "lose" wars even less. Politically he's in a difficult position. But I will give him points for consistency. He's been supportive of the Afghan conflict since the beginning. He's just trying to find a way to soft-peddle troop increases to those supporters of his who are sick of wars. And he really has only 2 choices, either cut America's losses and go home, or stop playing games the way the Bush Administration did and pump in the necessary resources to turn the thing around. Things have gotten so out of control that I'm not sure the latter is still feasible at this point, but maintaining the status quo is a guaranteed recipe for failure.
Scott,
You're asking the wrong question. It's not whether they'll send more troops, it's what those troops are going to do when they get there. At least 1,000 of them will be more SOF and CIA wet-works guys, telling us Obama/McChrystal favors the Post 9/11 strategy of assassinations and surgical strikes, and we remember how well that strategy worked for Bush in 2002.
We could send in 100,000 more troops, but it's not going to push the meter in either direction if they all hang out on FOB's and only go out to slaughter women and children with robot airplanes.
Peter,
Obama's base is not Anti-War, only a tiny part of it. Obama's coalition is made up of anti-war progressives, yes, but also Labor remnants, minorities, and women, groups who are not necessarily opposed to war, particularly a war President Obama explicitly campaigned on escalating.
Republicans are unlikely to attack Obama for withdrawal, seeing as how that's currently what they're advocating for. It should be noted, however, that the GOP "stand-off" strategy is the same strategy President Clinton used for Afghanistan during the 1990's, and may or may not have contributed to 9/11, so there's that to consider for what it's worth. (Political Spin writes itself - "Republicans want another 9/11!!!")
Also, do you have any evidence for Presidents being voted out on account of "losing" wars? What wars did Ford, Carter, or Bush 41 lose? I'm pretty sure that's just conventional wisdom, not an actual fact.
Josh,
The fact remains that anti-war progressives are a significant part of Obama's base and that much of the rest of his base is quite frankly weary of wars. Current polling shows that 62% of Democrats do not support the war. This is why Obama is now facing some resistance within his own party's congressional delegation regarding the troop increase.
And if you think the Repubs won't attack Obama over a withdrawal then you don't understand the Republican right. The Afghan war remains strongly supported by the right. Fox's latest polling shows 66% support for the war among Repubs. And make no mistake, they will do their utmost to tar him as weak should he order a pull out, and imho they will probably succeed.
Presidents who are perceived to be weak lose elections. Carter's impotence in the face of the Iranian hostage crisis, including the disastrous rescue operation that resulted in aircraft crashing in the desert cost him the 1980 election.
Minor engagements that went mostly unnoticed by the populace aside, precious few American presidents have ever "lost" a war. In fact I'm hard pressed to think of any aside from Vietnam which did cost LBJ his re-election. So your question is pretty silly. I can just as easily turn it around and ask you to name some Presidents who lost a war and were re-elected. Nixon may have been responsible for the pull-out from Vietnam, but he never adopted the war which had already been burned into everyone's minds as LBJ's war much as Iraq was Bush's war. Obama isn't on the hook for Iraq, but given his position up until this point on Aghanistan, he is on the hook there. Were Obama to order a pull out his opponents would take great joy in using his own past words against him. You can also bet that there would be a great deal of fear-mongering about how any attack on American soil after a pull-out would be entirely his fault for having allowed Al Qaeda a safe-haven in Afghanistan from which to plot attacks against America. While an argument might be made that the fear-mongering would occur either way, imho it will gain better traction if troops are pulled out of Aghanistan and anti-American jihadis were able to take over afterward.