Alinsky In Afghanistan

You would hardly guess it, but at one time Afghanistan was Obama's central front in the war on terror.  In the run up to the 2008 presidential election Obama campaigned on the premise that the war in Iraq was a mistake and a distraction from the real war on terror, and that he, Obama, would correct that mistake.  He would do it by fighting the war in Afghanistan.  It was a war we could not afford to lose, so he said. 

Or maybe we can.  General Stanley McChrystal, U.S commander in Afghanistan, has said he needs more troops in Afghanistan if we are to wage the successful counterinsurgency campaign that the administration decided upon when President Obama put him charge last spring.   But last spring's decision doesn't look that good right now, with health care reform sucking up congressional and presidential processing cycles. 

This fall, Obama is reconsidering his options in that light and looking for a way out of Afghanistan.  His new course of action is to publicly question the strategy he decided upon back in the spring.

The Afghan strategy doesn't matter.  Health care reform is the war Obama has decided he wants to win.  We're getting a first hand lesson in governance by the Alinsky method. 

Alinsky sneered at those who would accept defeat rather than break their principles: “It’s true I might have trouble getting to sleep because it takes time to tuck those big, angelic, moral wings under the covers.” He assured his students that no one would remember their flip-flops, scoffing, “The judgment of history leans heavily on the outcome of success or failure; it spells the difference between the traitor and the patriotic hero. There can be no such thing as a successful traitor, for if one succeeds he becomes a founding father.” If you win, no one really cares how you did it.

So the strategy for Afghanistan is of no interest beyond the political fallout that may come of Obama's abandonment of it.  Afghanistan is Iraq, a distraction. 

Obama seemed to adopt a policy of neglect towards Afghanistan.  It's an inevitability that support for the war would erode as time passed by.  He had only to procrastinate and public opinion would take care of itself.  But then Bob Woodward and blew his cover by publishing a secret Pentagon report that said his commanders would need thousands more troops for the deteriorating situation.  Sure enough, General McChrystal made his request, possibly confident in the misapprehension that his and Obama's views on the matter were identical. 

That seems not to have been the case.  Whether it is or it isn't, procrastination is no longer a good option for Obama.  His next best choice is deliberation, or the pretense of it.

But now, after nearly a month of deliberations by Mr. Obama over whether to send more American troops to Afghanistan, frustrations and anxiety are on the rise within the military.

A number of active duty and retired senior officers say there is concern that the president is moving too slowly, is revisiting a war strategy he announced in March and is unduly influenced by political advisers in the Situation Room.

It's my guess that after careful consideration Obama likely will send a few more troops, but probably not enough to make a difference.  He will send enough to make it look like he's trying real hard, but not enough to bring security to the Afghans.  And then when we revisit this whole Afghan question some months down the road, maybe enough time will have passed for Americans to become fed up and demand a pullout.  Or so Obama can hope.

The foundation has been laid.  What we're getting is almost a replay of the Iraq argument.  Back when Obama and the rest of the Democrats were trying to lose that war, they all declared that it was up to the Iraqis to stand up.  Surprise!  Now we need good government in Afghanistan.  Otherwise there is no point in being there.

In comes the U.N.-backed panel to say there should be a runoff between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and top challenger Abdullah Abdullah.  The Electoral Complaints Commission responded to allegations of ballot-stuffing and intimidation and threw out enough of Hamid Karzai's votes that his total fell below 50 percent.  Afghans weren't too happy about it, but it's perfect for Obama.

Hundreds of Karzai supporters protested in the south over the weekend, calling for the electoral commission to release results quickly and saying they will reject a second round.

They gathered in the main street of the southeastern city of Spin Boldak on Sunday, shouting, "We want the result!" and "Karzai is our leader!"

Ali Shah Khan, a tribal leader from the area, said the protesters believed the August vote was fair and that foreigners were delaying the results to unseat Karzai.

"We know they don't want President Karzai because he is a strong leader and he is working only for the people of Afghanistan," Khan said. "The foreign countries want a weak leader for Afghanistan. After that they can do whatever they want."

The White House says President Barack Obama will not send more U.S. troops until a credible government is in place.

Under pressure from the U.S. Hamid Karzai has agreed to the runoff election against Abdullah Abdullah.  Senator John "Lord" Kerry of Massachusetts made a special trip to help him to the decision.  Obama now believes he has a good excuse to delay any and all action on Afghanistan. 

Two of President Obama's top advisers on Afghanistan – Sen. John Kerry and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel – said Sunday that the United States should not commit more troops to Afghanistan until Afghans sort through their political crisis.

But Obama can only delay for the moment.  Americans are losing faith in his handling of the war.  The "surge" in Iraq demonstrated that an effective counterinsurgency strategy with enough troops to execute it works.  Publicly doubting the wisdom of using this strategy in Afghanistan presents a great political risk for Obama and the Democrats in the face of this evidence.  John Nagl, who wrote the Army & Marines Counterinsurgency Field Manual for General David Petraeus, and Richard Fontaine, a foreign policy advisor to John McCain, write today that the counterinsurgency remains the best option in Afghanistan.   

Electoral fraud will render our task in Afghanistan more difficult, but it does not make counterinsurgency impossible. On the contrary, a counterinsurgency approach - and not a narrowly tailored mission focused solely on killing or capturing enemies - remains the best path to success in Afghanistan.

To understand why, consider the analogous case of Iraq over the last three years. In January 2007, the "surge" of combat forces began as part of a new counterinsurgency strategy that emphasized clearing areas of fighters, holding that territory and building the infrastructure and institutions that had been so badly lacking - just as Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal has proposed for Afghanistan.

At the time, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Shiite-led government was widely viewed as weak and sectarian. An overwhelming number of Sunni Arabs - who formed the center of gravity of the insurgency - rejected its legitimacy and had boycotted the December 2005 elections that brought it to power. The al-Maliki government had done little to allay these feelings; on the contrary, elements of its security forces participated in sectarian violence against Sunnis through 2006. As Sunnis became further alienated from the central government, the cycle of violence began to spiral out of control.

Army Gen. David Petraeus's counterinsurgency strategy aimed to arrest this process by using American troops to protect the population - predicting, correctly, that until basic security was restored in key neighborhoods and communities, extremists on both sides of the sectarian divide would continue to inflame the situation. With U.S. forces clearing and holding territory and demonstrating to the Sunnis that they had a reasonable alternative to al-Qaida and its sectarian warfare, the extremists were sidelined. Security began to improve, and the political space necessary for reconciliation began to open.

Prospects for such an outcome in Afghanistan actually look better now than they did in Iraq in early 2007.

Unfortunately, Afghanistan is the distraction as far as the Obama administration is concerned.  Afghanistan has become Iraq.  It's the wrong war.  The right war for Obama is the pacification of America through health care reform.