Lead, Lead, Or Get Out Of The Way
By Mitch Berg
Robert Kaplan, one of the best war correspondents working today and, as an “Atlantic” writer, hardly a tool of the GOP, on Obama’s Afghanistan policy.
Kaplan, the author of Imperial Grunts (which sounded some of the first warnings about the impending failure in Afghanistan, back in the day when even John Kerry was a believer), says there’s not much good news on either side of the aisle:
When it comes to foreign policy, Republicans and Democrats are each suspect in their own way. Republicans used to be the party of competence in world affairs. They lost that aura during President George W. Bush’s first six years in office, when he mismanaged the wars both in Iraq and in Afghanistan. The Democrats, for their part, are often accused of being wobbly on national security, lacking both toughness and gumption. Unfortunately, President Barack Obama’s recent handling of the war in Afghanistan plays to those charges. Being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize will only intensify the perception that he is a weak war leader.
Kaplan’s not only entitled to his opinion about Bush, but given his background in the subject, the opinion deserves a serious listen.
But while people might accuse the Bush administration of bobbling the high-level strategy, Obama’s greater-included sins seem to include a key tenet of basic leadership:
It’s perfectly legitimate for Obama to review Afghanistan strategy and troop numbers. But by calling into question the very strategy that he put into place earlier in the year, when he called Afghanistan the “necessary war,” and promised to properly resource it, Obama is courting charges from the right that he is another ineffectual Jimmy Carter—that other Nobel Peace Prize winner.
But what Obama’s second-guessing of his own strategy in fact suggests is poor policy coordination at the White House. There’s more than a passing similarity between the White House’s hiccups on health care and its confusion on Afghanistan. In each case, the executive branch went forward on an issue without being fully staffed out, or in agreement on the specifics.
Going “Charge! Er, no, wait, left face and march!” isn’t the kind of thing that inspires confidence.
Furthermore, in this highly networked media age you only get to fire a general once. It’s not like the Civil War era, when Abraham Lincoln could quietly relieve one commander after another until he found Ulysses Grant. Last May, the Obama Administration fired Army Gen. David McKiernan, then the commander in Afghanistan, in a particularly humiliating manner. McKiernan wasn’t a failed general; he simply wasn’t the best man for the job. Yet he’ll forever be known as the first wartime commander to have been relieved of his duties since President Harry Truman fired Army Gen. Douglas MacArthur in Korea. The Administration chose Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal to take his place. It was during the selection process for the new general that a policy review would have made sense—though only behind closed doors. And the time to roll out a new or adjusted strategy would have been when McChrystal’s selection was announced, so that he could become the face of the new policy.
The Administration had many months, beginning the moment Obama was elected, to recalibrate Afghan strategy. Yet it’s now in the position of publicly questioning the fundamental wisdom of the general it has chosen. The position Obama’s now in is similar to that of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld some years back—appearing not to be listening to his generals. If the president doesn’t agree with his field commander, that’s fine. Just don’t make a public spectacle of it.
Obama still hasn’t learned that life isn’t all a Chicago city council meeting; you don’t get mulligans on the big calls:
Even if Obama does end up making the correct decision on Afghanistan strategy (by which I mean adding troops, since counterinsurgency is manpower-intensive), the public agony over his deliberations may already have done incalculable damage. The Afghan people have survived three decades of war by hedging their bets. Now, watching a young and inexperienced American president appear to waiver on his commitment to their country, they are deciding, at the level of both the individual and the mass, whether to make their peace with the Taliban—even as the Taliban itself can only take solace and encouragement from Obama’s public agonizing.
Oh – and remember all that hope and change Obama was going to bring to our public image abroad?
Obama’s wobbliness also has a corrosive effect on the Indians and the Iranians. India desperately needs a relatively secular Afghan regime in place to bolster Hindu India’s geopolitical position against radical Islamdom, and while the country enjoyed an excellent relationship with bush, Obama’s dithering is making it nervous. And Iran, in observing Washington’s indecision, can only feel more secure in its creeping economic annexation of western Afghanistan. So, too, other allies far and wide—from the Middle East to East Asia, and Israel to Japan—will start to make decisions based on their understanding that Washington under Obama may not have their backs in a crisis. Again, the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Obama only plays to such fears.
As with everything Kaplan writes, read the whole thing.
October 14th, 2009 at 7:13 am
Yup. It’s pretty feckless. The pravda appears to be that the cause for reconsideration of Afghanistan as a war of necessity is some level of corruption — at times, almost Chicagoan — in their recent election. The corruption/irregularities/acorning of the Afghan election is real, but it’s hard to see how that changes the fundamental necessity that Obama campaigned on for victory there: to deny the country as a free-range breeding/training ground for Al Qaeda terrorists.
That said, the Biden plan — combine Predator attacks with limited special forces operations — could, in theory, do that . . . if Afghanistan was the size of, say, New Brighton.
I’d hope that Obama is contemplating playing a deeper game — letting things go to hell there until the locals have their equivalent of the Sunni Awakening, as the Bush administration stumbled into in Iraq. (The surge would likely have been just another escalation if the Iraqis hadn’t been primed to be cooperative by the Al Qaeda outrages.) But that’s not the way to bet.
October 14th, 2009 at 7:19 am
letting things go to hell there until the locals have their equivalent of the Sunni Awakening
Dunno. They’ve lived in hell for a generation, maybe two in Pashtun years, between the Russians, the civil war, the Taliban and then this past eight years. Not sure if “go to hell” has the same meaning to them that it does to us, or even to Iraqis.
October 14th, 2009 at 7:33 am
The same argument could have been — and somebody probably did — been made about the Iraqis, and living under the Saddamite regime.
I’m not saying that it would be the right policy, but at least it would be one. Right now, the Obama administration’s actual policy seems to be to dither in the hope that the Afghans will do something to justify a troop draw-down, and I don’t think that’s much of a policy.
October 14th, 2009 at 9:46 am
Man, it seems like were a damned if we do damned if we don’t situation there now. Not only did the Soviets and British fail miserably at trying to “conquer” Afganistan but even Alexander the Great couldn’t do it (thank you Vince Flynn, I heard him talking about that this morning on KQ). His solution after a 1 1/2 year stale mate was to have 1,000 of his generals marry 1,000 Afghans and give them as much gold as possible. We had our chance to get this situation under control from December 2001 to January 2003 that was our window, when the Taliban was still on the run. Now the person who we banked on for peace, Karzi, looks about as good for the country as the Shah of Iran was only he has less power. If things aren’t straightened out soon look for Afghanistan (and possibly Pakistan and its nukes) to fall into the hands of the Taliban creating a Iranian-lite regime there. Oh joy…
October 14th, 2009 at 10:38 am
Ben: well, yeah. If only Bush had gone with my modest suggestion, back in 2001 — nuke ’em, followed by a short policy statement: “Attacks on American soil are not permitted.”
October 14th, 2009 at 11:02 am
Ultimately, it does not matter what the final decision is, but a decision it must be, whatever the consequences – good or bad, and only history will tell. And it is not supposed to be played out in the media, focus groups, tea leaves, etc. For effing sake – is 0bama a CIC or WIC?
October 14th, 2009 at 11:50 am
Joel, in retrospect yeah tactical nuke probably would have been the solution. Lord knows even I at 15, being an emotional (and probably semi-irrational mind you) wreck after 9/11 wanted swift and hard retribution. I know it would never be said but I say personally for every one innocent civilian you kill we will kill 1,000 of yours. Some might call me a monster, I say that is a way to discourage attacks. and JPA,he is a WIC, if he wasn’t he would have backed the Iranian people in overthrowing the government which could have happened back in June after that sham of an election.
October 14th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
It’s not like anyone has a clear idea of what way forward will work in Afghanistan, is it?
From a report yesterday: “Even with additional troops, McChrystal concluded that corruption still could let terrorists turn Afghanistan back into a haven, according to officials at the Pentagon and White House.”
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iqyaFh_efr-brDq0rMLF1hkop0tgD9BANI300
October 14th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
Speaking of feckless, it turns out that the Bush administration received nearly the same warnings re. Afghanistan back in April of 2008, along with a request for more troops and a request to delay the elections.
However this works out, we should remember the role that George W. Bush played in brewing the current dilemma. He denied adequate resources to the Afghanistan effort for seven years, and then, when apprised of the likely calamitous outcome, decided this would all be a problem for his successor to grapple with. That attitude made it much worse.
Read the whole thing:
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/09/hbc-90005755
October 14th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
ah, BDS is still alive and well
October 14th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
Peter, harpers isn’t exactly unbiased. When I clicked on your link the first thing I saw was a mag cover that said “A fate worse than Bush: Why you should all fear the prospect of a President Guliani” get away from the Sorosphere sometime and try to read some real news.
October 14th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
In next month’s edition Harpers is running a story blaming the Hindenberg disaster on Bush. Also Helen Keller’s blindness.
October 14th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
PeterH:
How long will your incoherent BDS last?
I have yet to see any skepticism or criticism from you toward Obama.
Behold the blind adoration toward the Obamassiah.
Have you taken the pledge to be a servant to Obama?
October 14th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
He denied adequate resources to the Afghanistan effort for seven years, and then, when apprised of the likely calamitous outcome, decided this would all be a problem for his successor to grapple with
Peter,
I”ll read the Harper’s piece (I haven’t yet, and can’t until I get home).
I’ll be curious to see how often “prioritization given contemporary realities” is called “denial”. Of course, one person’s prioritiziation is another person’s incompetence or perfidy…
…but I’ll check it out.
All – while Harpers is a left-leaning outlet, it’s not the Daily Kos, either. It’s worth refuting it with an actual attack on its assertions, rather than observing they work for the bad guys.
Which I’ll work on tonight.
October 14th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
Krod,
I should point out at this point that PeterH, while no conservative, is no BDS-addled koolaidoholic, nor is he an Obama worshipper.
October 14th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
berg, your claim has not been confirmed, but I am not saying he is some moon-bat-crazy-wing-nut like Peev or Flush… …yet.
Here is what we know:
PeterH was the one delving in to the past and pointing the finger at Booosh, all be it through a link to Harpers.
BDSish?
check
Skepticism or criticism from PeterH toward Obama.
Not that I have seen, yet.
check
berg, while I like your optimism, I am going to side with realism at this point. 8)
October 14th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
I’ve been upset about the conduct of the war in Afghanistan since reading reports back in 2002 that Pentagon brass were ordering special forces, deeply embedded with the Afghans fighting the Taliban and hunting AQ, to shave and look more “regular Army.”
I guess that means I’m a raging Bush-hater. Or maybe I wanted our guys to succeed.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/12/us/vigilance-memory-kandahar-pentagon-tells-troops-afghanistan-shape-up-dress-right.html?pagewanted=all
October 14th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
You’re the one that keeps bringing up Bush. (Or should that be Booooosh!!!)
October 14th, 2009 at 5:50 pm
Krod,
Peter is bringing up an incident that actually happened, as pointed out to Robert Kaplan by a whole slew of US Special Forces (“Green Berets”); the “Big Army” really didn’t “get” counterinsurgency or unconventional warfare; many in USSF pointed out to Kaplan that senior brass seemed embarassed by the photos that came back from Kandahar of bearded, mufti-clad Green Berets leading Northern Alliance muj on horseback. It is neither here nor there to note that this occurred under the Bush Administration (because it did!), and under Clinton (read Black Hawk Down, where Mark Bowden notes that Delta operators chafed at being ordered to get haircuts and shave for their annual unit photo – which directly harmed their ability to “go native” for counterterror operations), and, yes, today.
Bagging on Big Army is pretty non-partisan. And, in normal times, it’s pretty harmless.
Of course, today the entire mentality – exacerbated by Obama’s gross leadership deficit – might lose us a war, and recreate a terrorist safe haven that, with a little wisdom, we could have secured five years ago, regardless of who the President was.
October 14th, 2009 at 6:08 pm
IMO Berg its already lost us the war and I really hate to say that because I do not wish defeat on us ever but it seems to be written on the wall. Between Obama’s incompetence as CinC and his indecision on almost every domestic and foriegn policy (with the exception of playing nice with our enemies and pissing our allies off, he has that part down) I don’t see a way out of this mess. It also shows a stunning lack of character when your general that YOU PUT IN CHARGE is critical and all you can do is call him back to Air Force One like a parent punishing a child for saying something bad and still having no decision to show for it but I digress. Obama f*cked up Afghanistan and the only reason he won’t do that with Iraq is because most of the heavy lifting was done before he was put into office. Worst.President.Ever. Only 3 years and 3 months left…
October 14th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
“It is neither here nor there to note that this occurred under the Bush Administration and under Clinton”
Exactly! So let us now look forward and not harp on the errors of the past but correct those errors for future success.
Have those errors been corrected since Obama has taken office? If not, why not? If so, bravo.
October 14th, 2009 at 6:38 pm
I shouldn’t have tried being subtle with K-Rod. Mitch picked up on it, though.
My critique of the Pentagon Brass does is just that — a critique of the career army types whose focus on rules and appearances were at odds with our goals in the field. It had nothing to do with the Bush administration or Rumsfeld. In a more perfect world, of course, Rumsfeld would have called for those bureaucrats’ heads.
The point to the Harper’s article is that Obama is being dumped on for mulling over the same issue that Bush punted on. It would be refreshing to hear Obama’s critics admit that.
It is now Obama’s war, and I hope and pray that he gets it right. I’m okay with a little more mulling. Decisiveness in pursuit of failure is no virtue.
October 14th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
Then why did YOU bring Bush into the discussion, PeterH?
Let’s not give Obama a pass because of Bush’s failures.
October 14th, 2009 at 7:43 pm
Hell, K-Rod, people bring up Alexander the Great when discussing Afghanistan. It’s called history.
October 14th, 2009 at 7:43 pm
but K-Rod thats the lefts motto, you can’t blame Obama for Bush’s f*** ups. Too bad most of the country doesn’t buy that bs anymore. If they try that mantra in 2010 they are DOA
October 14th, 2009 at 9:24 pm
It’s weird, Peter H, that someone would point to an article in Harpers as though it was some authoritative source on Bush-era military policy. Especially an article written by Scott Horton. His focus isn’t military strategy & tactics, it’s international law and human rights. War involves ignoring these.
October 14th, 2009 at 9:38 pm
[…] Barack Hussein Obama II RT @mitchpberg Robert Kaplan: Obama failing leadership test in Afghanistan http://www.shotinthedark.info/wp… #narn2 #hhrs #tcot 14 hours ago […]
October 14th, 2009 at 10:08 pm
Horton’s piece in Harpers is really bad. He really just endorses an article in the NYRB written by an Ahmed Rashid, a journalist living in Pakistan. Horton makes it appear as though the quote about Bush denying sufficient resources came from a leaked memo written by McChrystal. It doesn’t. It comes from Rashid’s article. Rashid is paraphrasing unnamed “US officials”.
How in the hell can a reference to a paraphrasing of unnamed US officials by a foreign journalist even begin to be a discussion of whether Bush did or did not manage the Afghan war properly?
October 14th, 2009 at 11:36 pm
Terry, I’ve tried, but I can’t see how Horton is trying to make it sound like the quote came from McChrystal.
So you don’t like the Harper’s piece. Fine. I get that. I didn’t have any delusions that I was posting this to a left-wing echo chamber.
Is it or is it not true that Bush received an assessment and request for troops, in April 2008, that is much like the assessment and request for troops that Obama is getting from McChrystal? Whining about the source of that information is not an effective way of refuting the information.
My argument is that there is not a clear way forward in Afghanistan, obvious to all good, upstanding patriots.
As proof, I brought up the McChrystal assessment with regards to how corruption in the Afghan government may prevent our success. I sure hope that someone in the administration is pressing him on this — to make certain that he believes that there is a way to succeed, in spite of the corruption (which is a given).
Some here want to suggest that the McChystal report is a slam dunk for adding a lot more troops ASAP. If that’s the case, how does one explain that the Bush administration assessed a similar report 18 months ago and chose not to act with the urgency that is now demanded of Obama?
October 15th, 2009 at 2:33 am
Peter H, It’s not a “Harpers piece”. Its a very short article in Harpers — almost a blog entry — by Scott Horton pointing to an NYRB essay by Rashid. Rashid’s essay is poorly sourced, at least the paragraph that Horton quoted. It isn’t that I don’t like it, its that you seem to think it an authority that it does not.
“how does one explain that the Bush administration assessed a similar report 18 months ago and chose not to act with the urgency that is now demanded of Obama?”
I don’t know. How does one explain that sometimes it rains when the sky is a crystal clear blue? What the do you mean by “The Bush administration assessed a similar report 18 months ago and chose not to act with the urgency that is now demanded of Obama?” Similar in what way? Different in what way? Who is demanding that Obama act on anything? In general it’s a good idea to avoid the passive voice when discussing matters of war & peace and life and death. We have people who responsible for these matters. Name them.
October 15th, 2009 at 2:35 am
Peter H, It’s not a “Harpers piece”. Its a very short article in Harpers — almost a blog entry — by Scott Horton pointing to an NYRB essay by Rashid. Rashid’s essay is poorly sourced, at least the paragraph that Horton quoted. It isn’t that I don’t like it, its that you seem to think it has an authority that it does not.
“how does one explain that the Bush administration assessed a similar report 18 months ago and chose not to act with the urgency that is now demanded of Obama?”
I don’t know. How does one explain that sometimes it rains when the sky is a crystal clear blue? What the do you mean by “The Bush administration assessed a similar report 18 months ago and chose not to act with the urgency that is now demanded of Obama?” Similar in what way? Different in what way? Who is demanding that Obama act on anything? In general it’s a good idea to avoid the passive voice when discussing matters of war & peace and life & death. We have people who are responsible for these matters. Name them.
October 15th, 2009 at 7:15 am
There’s always been lots of regular brass who don’t like and or don’t get the Relatively New Thing, regardless; it’s been a problem in all the services, well, forever. The only reason, really, that the carrier admirals got the upper hand in WWII is that too many of the battleships were sunk at Pearl Harbor, and if you read any of the history around the early years of the various special forces, the brass didn’t much like them, either.
Afghanistan is sort of the perfect classical mission for Army Special Forces — small groups living with, working among, and leading locals is what they were originally designed to do, whether to distract huge numbers of conventional opposition, or as a “force multiplier” for counterinsurgency operations. But expecting, as Biden apparently does, but them doing that and acting as spotters for indirect fire (Predators, say) is going to do much of anything more than making a Taliban resurgence more difficult for the Taliban is just plain silly.
October 15th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
PeterH, any faults of Alexander the Great probably can be attributed to Boooosh!
“how does one explain that the Bush administration assessed a similar report 18 months ago and chose not to act with the urgency that is now demanded of Obama?”
Obama just won the Nobel Peace Prize! Doesn’t that hint that maybe we should hold Obama (The LightWorker, The One, He’s gonna change the world song) to a bit of a higher standard when it come to war and PEACE?
The only positive when it comes to all of Obama’s failures is that it should limit him to one term. Now that’s some CHANGE we can all support!