A good treatise on the issues that Obama needs to consider on Afghanistan.
====================================
Obama confronts ghost of Vietnam
Paul Kelly, Editor-at-large | October 03, 2009
Article from: The Australian
HAVING just called Afghanistan a "war of necessity", Barack Obama confronts the most critical decision of his presidency so far: to escalate the US military commitment or defy his military advisers who are warning of defeat.
An intense struggle is under way within the higher reaches of the Obama administration that will define its character, its priorities and its conception of US power. It seems incredible but Vietnam, along with Iraq, is the constant reference point.
There is no good option in Afghanistan. The strategic decision is irrevocably tied to domestic politics, where support for the war is weak, the US economy is dangerously impaired and Obama faces the risk that Afghanistan will overwhelm his first term and even risk his presidency.
For the Democratic Party, the symbols of Vietnam lurk in the shadows and invade the White House. Obama's commander, Stanley McChrystal, in his August 30 report to Defence Secretary Robert Gates, said unless there was a significant increase in US military forces and a radical change in counter-insurgency strategy then the war "will likely result in failure".
McChrystal's report is a lethal indictment of US and NATO tactics in a war that's eight years old. McChrystal wants an extra 30,000 to 40,000 troops. This follows Obama's earier decision to lift numbers by 21,000 to a projected 68,000. It is impossible to read the version of McChrystal's report published by The Washington Post without feeling a chill of alarm.
The messages leap from the page. The Afghan government is riddled with corruption, defective military tactics have alienated the international forces from the Afghan people and a defensive mindset has made "protection of our own forces" the priority. There is a single stunning argument, namely that US-led forces face defeat unless there is a comprehensive change in tactics and more resources devoted to the struggle.
"Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near-term (next 12 months) while Afghan security capacity matures risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible," McChrystal says. If you want optimism, try this: "While the situation is serious, success is still achievable."
The psychological demons of the Democratic Party are on display. Democrats recall how in the 1960s president Lyndon Johnson's Vietnam obsession undermined his Great Society vision at home. In Vietnam terms, Obama is being asked to escalate his military commitment to a corrupt Karzai government and commit to a new counter-insurgency model because the struggle for hearts and minds is being lost. There is no certainty of victory but higher levels of US combat deaths are guaranteed. No wonder the White House is taking time out to reassess.
If Obama acts on McChrystal's report he must persuade the US people, battered from recession, that it is time to make greater sacrifices in blood and treasure in a distant theatre.
Vice-President Joe Biden favours an alternative approach. Former secretary of state Colin Powell has cautioned Obama against assuming that more troops deliver victory. Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Democratic senator John Kerry, worries about a recycling of Vietnam War mistakes. The New York Times columnist Tom Friedman thinks the US lacks a viable partner in the Afghan government, which was re-elected amid polling fraud.
Conservative columnist George F. Will has quoted with approval the advice given to the Senate in February 1966 on Vietnam by America's greatest diplomat, George F. Kennan: "There is more respect to be won in the opinion of this world by a resolute and courageous liquidation of unsound positions than by the most stubborn pursuit of extravagant or unpromising objectives." Meanwhile, in The New York Times, columnist Frank Rich declared that after an arguably stolen election Hamid Karzai was no longer "a credible counter to the Taliban or a legitimate partner for America".
Gates says the Obama administration is re-evaluating the Afghanistan strategy it decided on last March.
"The reality is that failure in Afghanistan would be a huge setback for the US," the Defence Secretary told a national television audience. The aim, he said, was to get the strategy right.
The ultimate issue is how much Obama believes in the primacy of the Afghanistan struggle, the ability of the US to construct an effective strategy against the Taliban and whether he is prepared to sustain the higher costs interms of finance, deaths and politicalcapital.
Kerry, Democratic nominee against George W. Bush in 2004, says: "Before we send more of our young men and women to this war, we need a fuller debate about what constitutes success in Afghanistan. General McChrystal offers no timetable or exit strategy beyond warning that the next 12 months are critical. Mr Obama promises not to send more troops to Afghanistan until he has absolute clarity on what the strategy will be. He is right to take the time he needs to define the mission."
The issue at this point is not withdrawal. It is how best to fight and what price to pay. This decision penetrates to Obama's essence. With the US economically weakened, facing serious spending constraints, still psychologically harmed by the Iraq venture and apprehensive about Afghanistan, does the President enshrine this as "Obama's war" and deepen the commitment? Does he possess the faith and rhetorical resources to summon such a campaign on behalf of the American people? Does the Democratic Party have the stomach for such a decision given the extraordinary elevation of the Vietnam analogy in the past 10 days?
On the alternative side of this divide lurks a political monster waiting to assault Obama. If he rejects McChrystal's report the cry from the American right-wing will be that Obama lacks the guts to win the war. Obama will be attacked as a weak leader who dishonours his military advice and lacks the fortitude for victory.
If he decides on a more modest strategy and McChrystal's warnings are validated then the American Right, down the track, will brand Obama as the leader who lost Afghanistan.
The parallel will be Iraq, not Vietnam. Where Bush backed David Petraeus and the surge, thereby consolidating the US position in Iraq, the contrast with any Obama refusal to back McChrystal will be stark. It is the superficial similarity between Bush's surge decision and the Afghanistan decision facing Obama that is explosive in political terms.
McChrystal's report has a terrible duality: it can entice Obama into a deepening mire or, if the President turns away, it can become a touchstone of his weakness.
"We must do things dramatically differently - even uncomfortably differently - to change how we operate, and also how we think," McChrystal says. "Our every action must reflect this change of mindset: how we traverse the country, how we use force and how we partner with the Afghans. Our campaign in Afghanistan has been historically under-resourced and remains so today. Almost every aspect of our collective effort and associated resourcing has lagged a growing insurgency, historically a recipe for failure in counter-insurgency. Success is not ensured by additional forces alone but continued under-resourcing will likely cause failure."
McChrystal's message is that "the entire culture" of the operation must change. It must shift to protecting the Afghan people and working with them. The crisis of governance must be addressed: the failure of popular confidence in the Afghan government and the "unpunished abuse of power by corrupt officials and powerbrokers, a widespread sense of political disenfranchisement and a longstanding lack of economic opportunity".
The trap for Obama is that a more limited approach may only prolong the defeat that McChrystal warns about. On the other hand, his report dictates that success will require a new brand of American commitment, intelligence and resources that may prove beyond the political will of the US at this point in its history.
theaustralian.news.com.au |
