–bumped–
I’m lost on President Barack Obama’s Afghanistan policy—along with most of Congress and the U.S. military. – Leslie Gelb
Something very troubling is rumbling up to the surface. A narrative of Obama vs. The Generals is quickly being crafted. It’s typical, but it’s politically very dangerous for the Obama administration, with Bill Roggio taking the analysis as far as it can go. All because of a leak that ended up in Bob Woodward’s hands and is causing a storm across the board.
Ben Smith stirs interesting plot lines today on the leak who dunnit? It’s the military. It was the White House. It was to embarrass Dems like Biden and others who want to withdraw. The leak helps the White House. It doesn’t… and on and on.
But whatever surety candidate Obama offered on purpose of mission on Afghanistan is now in rubble around his feet. One good reason could be that the Afghanistan election threw the Obama administration into policy quicksand. Since the Afghan election, it’s clear that something has dramatically shifted. Calling Karzai out would be the Harry Truman move, but that’s not Obama’s style and maybe it shouldn’t be. But how else can you explain after getting McChrystal’s evaluation and recommendations, Pres. Obama sounds less sure about the place he once called a “necessary war”?
So, after firing General David McKiernan, replacing his with Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, where we are headed isn’t clear. McChrystal, former Green Beret, top U.S. and NATO commander and commander of the military’s clandestine special operations, made it obvious that we were about to get serious in Afghanistan with a strategy to dislodge Taliban bad guys (now seemingly the focus) from their embedded positions in areas across the country. After the assessment, it’s clear a broader nation building goal, with a take control over the country mentality surfacing.
The leaking to Bob Woodward of the military assessment yesterday set up what’s been building, opening out into a very public confrontation, one that Sect. Hillary Clinton engaged quite publicly yesterday on “The News Hour.” Michèle Flournoy, the under secretary of defense for policy, said the same thing as Clinton did last night, via The Cable. Steve Clemons has already written a post on Clinton, with part of the “News Hour” transcript below, with the video available here.
MARGARET WARNER: Now you are a key advisor to President Obama as Secretary of State, as he’s reviewing this whole Afghan strategy. What is your reaction to General McChrystal’s assessment?
HILLARY CLINTON: Well first let me put it into context. I mean one of the points that the President has made continuously since taking office is that we’re going to be assessing, both our strategy and its implementation constantly. We’re not going to make a decision and then just let it go on autopilot. We think that it’s much better to be very open and robust in our deliberations. So what General McChrystal has done is to take a look from his perspective. He’s a new commander and he was asked to please give his best judgment. His memo is what’s called a classified pre-decisional assessment but it goes into the process. We have a really vigorous process through the NSC and the White House where we make our contributions and then of course decisions go to the president. I think the President said very well yesterday on his marathon talk show appearances that you know we need to have a clear view of the strategy and its implementation before we get to resources, and that’s the process we’re engaged in right now.
MARGARET WARNER: General McChrystal was very blunt saying if you want to do counter-insurgency, he needs more resources or the whole war will, quote, “likely result in failure.” Now is there anyone better positioned to give at least that kind of assessment than the commander you sent out there, or the president sent out there to do just that?
HILLARY CLINTON: Well, but, without referencing General McChrystal’s report because it is classified, let me just say that we know, including our military colleagues that good governance is key to whether or not what we do has positive results. We know that getting it right in Pakistan and along the border is critical. So there’s not just one decision point — number of troops. It is part of a broader understanding of what are our true goals, how best can we move toward achieving them? … [...] [...]
MARGARET WARNER: Fewer troops?
HILLARY CLINTON: Who knows? I mean what we’re looking at though are the goals that we have. Our goal is to protect the United States of America, our allies, our friends around the world from what is the epicenter of terrorism, namely the Afghanistan/Pakistan border. I mean just today we have this announcement in New York about a very important terrorism investigation involving people from Afghanistan. Some people say, “well al-Qaida’s no longer in Afghanistan.” If Afghanistan were taken over by the Taliban, I can’t tell you how fast al-Qaida would be back in Afghanistan. So we have to be really clear-eyed about this, and what I’m very grateful for is that we’re not coming in with any ideological, you know, presuppositions. We’re not coming in wedded to the past. What we try to do in this administration is to sort out all of the different factors and come to the resolution based on the best information we have, and then as soon as we do that we keep going at it. We don’t say, “OK, fine, now we’re set for the next five years.” That’s not the way the president works, that’s not the way that any of us work.
MARGARET WARNER: Getting back to General McChrystal’s memo though, he conveys a great sense of urgency. I mean there’s one line in there in which he says, “failure to gain the initiative,” and he’s talking about in the near term, while we wait for say the Afghan security forces to really get able to handle this. He said, “risks and outcome where defeating the insurgency’s no longer possible.” So he is strongly suggesting that there aren’t months and months to come to a decision here.
HILLARY CLINTON: Well and I respect that because clearly he is the commander on the ground, but I can only tell you there are other assessments from, you know, very expert military analysts who have worked in counter insurgencies that are the exact opposite. So what our goal is, is to take all of this incoming data and sort it out. And I don’t think anybody is going to push to a conclusion for the sake of a conclusion. I think you’ve seen that this president acts and thinks very deliberatively which I believe is a preferable way to proceed when you’re talking about the lives of young American men and women, the lives of the young soldiers of our allies who are part of the international security force, when you’re talking about lives of Afghans. You want to be sure that the approach that we are pursuing maximizes success. There is no guarantee. There is absolutely no guarantee, but what we do know is that this remains vital to America’s national security interests, so how do we best define our approach to protecting the interests and the values that are at stake?
It would be a shame if this turns into an “Obama vs the Generals” narrative, as some clearly hope. While we’re all on edge over this important policy decision, it seems to me that Obama’s doing what he’s supposed to do: asking the big questions about strategy and the wider set of American interests and resource commitments, while taking into account the predictable requests for more resources from the field commander. And McChrystal is doing what he’s supposed to do: carefully assess the assignment he’s been given and ask for the resources he thinks he needs to do the job. And, for that matter, Ambassador Holbrooke and his team are doing what they are supposed to do.
Rajiv Chandrasekaran offered a blunt assessment late last night on Charlie Rose, but he also seemed to take the military’s side, all of which illustrated why I haven’t been able to get behind a troop increase, even when I support Obama’s initial policy on Afghanistan. First, there’s no longer any talk of a civilian surge to help the citizens. That’s a huge problem for policy, in my opinion. Secondly, how can we ask our men and women to die for Karzai’s hopelessly corrupt, inept, and unpopular government, after an election that was clearly rigged, stolen, however you want to say it?
In the end, this may lie at the root of Obama’s current rethinking.
McChrystal and the military have different goals than the civilian leadership and the commander in chief. The leak puts that on the front burner. The military wants to win battles. The civilians actually in charge of policy have a lot more to think about. Unfortunately, as things stand today, it’s all being played out in the open, which will only increase the need for Obama to act.
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