As the Obama administration deliberates on what strategy and how many resources to commit or implement in Afghanistan, there has been growing comparisons between Obama’s dilemma and Bush’s prior to the Iraqi surge.  Though the comparison has several important leaks, there is much to discern in both President’s leadership styles and decision making methods.  The best piece on this subject I have read is this article by The New Republic’s Michael Crowley.  I highly recommend reading the whole thing, but here’s an excerpt:

Then there is the overriding question of just what the U.S. mission in Afghanistan really is. In Iraq, the Bushies offered vague talk of driving out Al Qaeda and setting up a stable government that could defend its own borders. Obama’s March address about the Afghanistan war was even cloudier, with a rhetorical emphasis on rooting out Al Qaeda–but also a call for a civilian surge to “advance security, opportunity and justice” for the Afghan people. (Bushian references to freedom and democracy have largely been retired, however.) Asked at a recent press event to describe success in Afghanistan, meanwhile, Holbrooke found a clear answer elusive. “We’ll know it when we see it,” he said.

But, if the definition of success isn’t clear to the Obama team, the definition of defeat may be. Bush argued unabashedly that Iraq had become “the central front in the war on terror” and that withdrawing before the country had stabilized would hand Al Qaeda not only a strategic but a moral victory. Current administration officials don’t publicly articulate the same rationale when discussing Afghanistan. But former CIA official Bruce Riedel, a regional expert who led the White House’s Afghanistan-Pakistan review earlier this year, cited it at the Brookings panel held in August. “The triumph of jihadism or the jihadism of Al Qaeda and the Taliban in driving NATO out of Afghanistan would resonate throughout the Islamic World. This would be a victory on par with the destruction of the Soviet Union in the 1990s,” Riedel said. “[T]he stakes are enormous.”

It appears that journalist Bob Woodward has the scoop again on the Obama administration’s next moves in Afghanistan. Well, I guess that’s not really accurate, as Woodward really has just broken the story of the Obama administration’s ‘plans’ for how they are going to decide their next moves in the war in Afghanistan. All of Woodward’s information comes from a phone interview with the administration’s National Security Advisor James Jones. Like I said, the interview and article do not divulge any real policy changes or decisions, but we do find out a set of 5 or so national security meetings debating the McChrystal report are scheduled in the next few weeks and few other nuggets that shed some light on the administration’s thinking and possible policy outcomes. Let’s see what Woodward and Jones had to say:

The upcoming meetings will begin with the assumption that the McChrystal strategy is correct, Jones said, adding that the president will “encourage free-wheeling discussion” and that “nothing is off the table.”

Overall, this sounds sound to me. Obama put McChrystal in charge of the war effort and therefore it is not surprising that he would put great weight into the General’s report and recommendations, however, if McChrystal’s report is indeed ‘correct’ and the said report recommended a strong counterinsurgency strategy that mandates thousands of more troops, than why the two following quotes, especially ‘nothing is off the table.’ I find much to be encouraging by President Obama’s willingness to see contrasting angles and hear varying views on important national security matters, but this smells a little too much like buying time because of indecisiveness within the administration. I mean Obama was ready to send 21,000 men and women to ‘protect the Afghan people’ from the moment he became President, but now appears to be wavering in support of a similar strategy. There is no doubt that growing public discontent, dissenting voices of influential folks (Biden, Will, Congressional Democrats), and the faltering legitimacy of the afghan presidential election have given ample reason to rethink US policy in Afghanistan, but the Obama administration should have been more prepared for these occurrences when it sent in the original troop surge in spring.

Moving on…

“The bumper sticker here is strategy before resources,” said Jones, adding: “This isn’t just about more troops.”

This has been a consistent line by the Obama administration since they took office and of course it sounds (sorry) sound, but right now, it just sounds like dodging making a decision. I mean troops, aka ‘resources’, are a central part of the McChrystal counterinsurgency strategy. To talk about one without the other does not really make sense right now. Of course we all want to see a well thought out strategy in place before we put our soldiers’ and the Afghan civilians’ lives at stake, but statements like this are really just buying time right now.

Lastly…..

Jones said the challenges Obama faces in the Afghan war are more “complex” and “bigger than the surge” decision President George W. Bush faced in Iraq three years ago.

I’m pretty sure the Iraq surge came up because Woodward brought it up otherwise I don’t really get why Jones would say this. Though Jones’ thoughts on this comparison are not really that important, I find him to wrong. An Iraq, already holding over 120,000 American troops, on the verge of possibly destabilizing one of most volatile regions of the world in 2006 was a grave threat. The number of surge troops, around 30,000-40,000 for Iraq and possibly the same number in Afghanistan, are close and with the recognition of the myriad of challenges facing the US in Afghanistan today, I don’t see how they can be
called more ‘complex’ than the geopolitics of Mesopotamia and the relationship between Iraqi Shia, Sunni, and Kurds.

It’s Out.  The Cat and Gen. McChrystal’s Afghan Strategy and Resource Recommendations to President Obama.  While I safely got my cat Chuck back into the house, the Obama administration cannot put McChrystal’s report, which calls for thousands of more troops or the US mission in Afghanistan “will likely result in failure”, back in its envelope.  Here’s where you can find a link to the report.

The manner in which the officially classified report was leaked is of interest as the Washington Post (whose legendary reporter Bob Woodward got the scoop) had an accompanying article discussing the topic.  In that report was some interesting quotes from an unnamed Pentagon official.  Here is the money quote:

“But Obama’s deliberative pace — he has held only one meeting of his top national security advisers to discuss McChrystal’s report so far — is a source of growing consternation within the military. “Either accept the assessment or correct it, or let’s have a discussion,” one Pentagon official said. “Will you read it and tell us what you think?” Within the military, this official said, “there is a frustration. A significant frustration. A serious frustration.”

First off, it’s unfortunate that yet another classified intelligence or military report was leaked, as it seems harder and harder to keep anything secret nowadays in our American democracy, even things (I’m thinking mainly about the CIA here) that may really come back to hurt our national security.  Though the contents of McChrystal’s report have been circulating through various sources (JCS Mullen, editorials by the report’s authors, etc.) and it seemed that everyone was already getting ready for a request for more troops, this very public outing puts tremendous pressure on the Obama administration to choose a strategy and then start resourcing it accordingly.  Obama was consistent in discussing his views on the subject during his Sunday media blitz; He wants to get the right Strategy chosen before deciding on sending more troops.

While I definitely agree with this assessment and hope the US Commander in Chief is pragmatically evaluating many views and policy possibilities on this important and complicated national security issue, it must be said that the President has had McChrystal’s report before him since August 30th.  This report by McChrystal is a Strategy, one that calls for an increase in resources quickly or else failure may be imminent.  If the McChrystal assessment is correct, time is indeed of the essence, and the Obama administration will need to come up with a plan to follow sooner rather than later.

The Obama administration has been hard at work denoting qualitative and quantitative metrics for progress in the war and a high Pentagon official and Obama appointee has already fought back stating that McChrystal’s report is just one input, an important one at that for sure, but just one, in a series of inputs in the President’s decision making apparatus.  But critical decisions need to be made and the President is going to need to explain these decisions to an anxious public.

• Lastly, I would like recommend a thoughtful piece by FPA’s own Marco Vicenzino regarding the recent deaths of several Italian soldiers and subsequent calls for withdrawal by Italy’s government.  Marco rightly criticizes this development stating: “This only embolden the determination and radical agenda of the insurgents who seek to remove the international presence in Afghanistan and restore their tyranny and oppression which lasted from 1996 to 2001.”

A few items of note to discuss:

• Just as I was applauding the seemingly positive news of the fact that Spain was planning to commit a few hundred more troops to the NATO effort in Afghanistan, President Stephen Harper of Canada’s spokesman Dimitri Soudas reiterated in a briefing Monday that Canada will withdraw its troops in 2011, affirmatively stating that this policy will not be swayed by Obama or anyone else.  “Canada’s position is clear,” Soudas said. “The military component of the mission ends in 2011.”  Canada has fought valiantly ever since NATO joined the fight and the war effort will lose much with their departure.  Alas, 2011 is a ways a way (like that?) and much can change between then and now.  Maybe, Mongolia can pick up some of the slack?

• Senator Dianne Feinstein, the Chair of Select Committee on Intelligence, had an interesting response to a question about whether the US had a clear strategy in Afghanistan:

FEINSTEIN: I believe it is not now. I do not believe we can build a democratic state in Afghanistan. I believe it will remain a tribal entity.

I do believe that clearing out Al Qaida, clearing out the Taliban is a bona fide part one of the mission. I do agree that training Afghan troops, Afghan — Afghan police is an important piece of the mission.

I believe the mission should be time limited, that there should be no, well, we’ll let you know in a year and a half, depending on how we do. I think the Congress is entitled to know, after Iraq, exactly how long are we going to be in Afghanistan.

First off, she makes a very blunt claim that one should not expect Afghanistan to be a democracy now or in any future as she deems it a ‘tribal entity’.  This point definitely has some accuracy, but it of course contradicts US, NATO, and UN objectives to build up the state government.  The latter part of the passage connects leaving Iraq with leaving Afghanistan, and this is very troublesome to me.  In this interview, Feinstein seems to have ‘when are getting out’ mentality, and this is coming from a very powerful Senator and Chairwoman.

• If one read and believed this report from the Associated Press, they might be inclined to be more sympathetic to Sen. Feinstein’s pessimism towards the US objective of state building and bringing stability to Afghanistan.  The AP report on Monday stated that 9 of every 10 members of the Afghan National Army was illiterate.  This one discouraging statistic shows too clearly the challenges facing the US/NATO build up of the Afghan government, police, and army.  One often hears scholars, columnists, politicians say ‘build up the Afghan army quick and let them do the dirty work’, but this report portrays just how challenging that goal can be.

• Let’s end on a positive note: This story is now a couple months old, but I wanted to get it in here.  Last June, the Afghan people officially dedicated Band-e-Amir its first National Park.  Though I’ve never been there, the park is located in Bamian province, central Afghanistan, and has six linked lakes that surrounded by majestic cliffs.  There is hope that if the park is well taken care of it could bring back much needed tourists, and the money in their pockets, back to Central Asia.  However, with the Taliban extending their presence deeper into the Afghan state, this seems far from realization any time soon.  Here’s a video showing the beauty of Band-e-Amir:

With good news regarding Afghanistan few and far between lately, I found this story though small, refreshingly positive.  The Spanish government has decided to send an additional 220 troops to the Central Asian state.  This would make Madrid’s total to around a 1,000 soldiers assigned to the NATO effort, but 450 of them were sent there just to provide security for the presidential election process, and it is likely these may be headed home soon.  The main point here is that the Spanish government has put in more chips into an effort that has suffered lagging support on both sides of the Atlantic and one can hope that other NATO members may follow suit.  Spain has lost 87 soldiers so far in Afghan conflict.

On an interesting side note, I found out that until recently Spain’s parliament had a 3,000 oversea troop level limit, and it was lifted for the Afghan troop deployment.  For a country that is a key NATO member, storied military, modern economy, and a population of 47 million, that number is amazing low.  It personifies to me the post-realist or postmodern worldview that parts of Europe live in today.

With Afghanistan presidential election marred with claims of fraud that may force a another turn at the polls, or at least a recount, and with the long term American presence in the country facing a growing, and at times loud, critical audience back in the States the Obama administration could use some clarity and some support.  While the President is getting some of this, and it is mainly coming from his right.

Dan Senor and Peter Wehner, both former officials for the last Bush administration, have called the conflict in Afghanistan, not ‘Obama’s War’, but ‘Our War’.  They explain further….

In this decade, Democrats were fierce opponents of President Bush’s Iraq policy, going so far as to declare the war lost and doing everything in their power to stop the surge—which turned out to be enormously successful—from going forward.

Our concern is that this tendency for the party out of (executive) power to pull back from America’s international role and to undermine a president of the opposing party will gain strength when it comes to President Obama’s policy on Afghanistan.

The president deserves credit for his commitment earlier this year to order an additional 17,000 troops for Afghanistan, as well as his decision to act on the recommendation of Gen. David Petraeus and Defense Secretary Robert Gates to replace the U.S. commander in Afghanistan with Gen. Stanley McChrystal.

These were tough and courageous decisions. The president’s actions have clearly unsettled some members of his own party, who hoped he would begin to unwind America’s commitment in Afghanistan. Mr. Obama not only ignored their counsel; he doubled down his commitment. There should therefore be no stronger advocates for Mr. Obama’s Afghanistan strategy than the GOP.

This idea of war in Afghanistan being ‘Our War’ goes beyond Obama, beyond the GOP, beyond politicians in Washington DC.  All Americans are in one way or another responsible for what goes on there and the men and women over there doing the real work need our support.  This of course does not mean that all should support the war effort there without being critical, not at all.  It means that we cannot pawn it off as someone else’s problem, Obama’s, Bush’s, Democrats, Republicans, the Afghan government, Pakistan, etc.  That is not how you solve a problem.

President Obama also received a very public show of support for his Afghan strategy through the medium of an Open Letter to him by numerous elites orchestrated by the Foreign Policy Initiative.  Here’s a short portion:

Since the announcement of your administration’s new strategy, we have been troubled by calls for a drawdown of American forces in Afghanistan and a growing sense of defeatism about the war.  With General McChrystal expected to request additional troops later this month, we urge you to continue on the path you have taken thus far and give our commanders on the ground the forces they need to implement a successful counterinsurgency strategy. There is no middle course. Incrementally committing fewer troops than required would be a grave mistake and may well lead to American defeat.  We will not support half-measures that repeat the errors of the past….

Mr. President, you have put in place the military leadership and sent the initial resources required to begin bringing this war to a successful conclusion. The military leadership has devised a strategy that will reverse the errors of previous years, free Afghans from the chains of tyranny, and keep America safe.  We call on you to fully resource this effort, do everything possible to minimize the risk of failure, and to devote the necessary time to explain, soberly and comprehensively, to the American people the stakes in Afghanistan, the route to success, and the cost of defeat.

One can definitely argue against the policies that these folks and Obama have advocated, but they are a voice that is growing fainter and fainter as the war drags on, and will be crucial if Obama intends to fully implement Gen. McChrystal’s counterinsurgency strategy.  Obama’s going to need all the support he can get if wants to succeed long term in Central Asia.

That being said, if Obama truly intends to go full bore in taming the instability in Afghanistan and giving its nascent government room and time to grow, and he has shown he’s willing to do so by his nearly 20,000 troop surge already, he’s going to need more domestic support than just these mostly prominent conservatives.  With poll numbers showing support for the war falling below 50%, Obama is going to need to show the American people we have a plan and the capability for success.  For this to work, he’s going to have to use some political capital and media savvy to promote the mission, something he for the most part has failed to loath to do so far.  Tonight, I got home late and immediately checked tonight’s the text from the Obama’s major national address for mentions of the war in Afghanistan.  This is the only thing I found and it shows the President is still failing to be up to the challenge.

“Add it all up, and the (health care) plan I’m proposing will cost around $900 billion over ten years – less than we have spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars…”

It’s hard to believe how much Afghanistan is dominating (with health care reform a close second) the American media landscape.  The Afghan presidential election results, and all of the fraud claims surrounding them, are constantly changing, leaks from Gen. McChrystal’s ’secret’ Afghan war strategy review are popping up everywhere, and poll results and calls from high stature folks to get the heck out of dodge are all finding headlines across the news world.  These issues, all juicy in their own right, have lead to a plethora of worthwhile reading on our dear ‘Afghanistan’.  Here are some items for you to keep Afghanistan on the mind during this Labor Day Weekend:

Right off the bat, I must recommend George Will’s ‘Time to Get Out of Afghanistan‘ editorial, which has really raised the ’stay’ or ‘go’ debate to a new level.  He is a major voice on the right in this country and as polls have consistently shown, American conservatives are President Obama’s biggest supporters on Afghanistan.  If they start to drip away, Obama and American’s presence in Afghanistan is in serious jeopardy.

As was expected, Mr. Will faced quite the rebuke, mostly from the right, and the US’s long term presence in Afghanistan also got some much needed positive light shone on it.  I highly recommend all of these rebuttals by Max Boot, Christian Brose, Michael O’Hanlon and Bruce Riedel.

FPA’s own Marco Vicenzino provides his own analysis of the Post-Election situation in Kabul and beyond.  Well done.

The Obama administration is still looking for a few good civilians.  Though the administration has taken some heat for the slow growth of their so-called ‘people surge’ in Afghanistan, it appears they’re starting to ramp up recruitment.  James Bever, the head of USAID’s Afghan-Pakistan Task Force, is “looking for officers and new professionals to assist us in what’s called the Provincial Reconstruction Teams… It might be in the health sector, it might be in engineering, it might be in rural, local government, it might be in education, or in economic transformation…”  It will be interesting to see how successful this recruitment turns out.

Here is video of envoy Richard Holbrooke’s latest remarks about the presidential election.  I, myself, haven’t had a chance to watch it all, but hopefully I’ll find time this weekend.

Apparently, the War on Terror may not be dead just yet.  Obama’s Press Secretary used the phrase in its former context when defending Obama’s Afghan strategy.

Peter Feaver lists some of the scariest things he’s read about Afghanistan, and concludes that what caused him the most concern was a McClatchy Report that featured a senior Pentagon official stating that he believed the Obama administration, and possibly the President himself, was not ‘fully committed’ to the Afghanistan war.  Feaver is rightfully concerned that if this is true than will be many troubled waters ahead, specifically involving civil-military relations and domestic support for the war effort.  Say what you want about President Bush, one knew where he stood on Iraq, he was full bore.  Does Obama have the same conviction about America’s military presence in Afghanistan?  This is a very important question.

In conclusion, here’s a picture of a Snow Leopard: