Seeking Non-Victory

President Obama seems to agonize.  The apparent question is, whether he will send more troops to Afghanistan or not. The commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, has requested 40,00 additional forces to prosecute the counterinsurgency strategy that we all thought that he and the president decided upon back in March of this year. 

Obama's rationale for delaying the decision is alleged corruption in the Afghan government and voting fraud in the August Afghan elections.  To confront these issues Obama sent Senator John Kerry to Afghanistan as a special envoy.  The senator met with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, and convinced him to submit to a runoff election against the runner up, former Afghan foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah. 

Strange as this may sound, it was a UN-led investigation that determined there was widespread electoral fraud.  The Obama administration holds the UN in very high regard, in spite of its own history of fraud and corruption.  Be that as it may, Obama has decided no decision on troop deployments will be made until after the runoff election which had been scheduled for November 7th.

That was before Abdullah Abdullah pulled out of the November 7th special election.  Media reports say that Abdullah's withdrawal casts doubt on the legitimacy of the new Karzai government which looks at this point like the only game in town.  I wonder that it doesn't cast doubt on the legitimacy of Abdullah Abdullah's challenge, but more importantly, I wonder what it does for Obama's decision making process.  To all outward appearances, sending more troops is the obvious choice.  There is a track record.

In 2006 when insurgent and terrorist violence in Iraq was at its height, Democrats and their allies in the media declared it to be a lost cause and demanded capitulation.  They didn't actually call it surrender, but that's what it would have been.  Understandably a majority of American voters believed the media narrative, and said so by handing control of congress to the Democrats.  Fortunately, congress is not the Commander-In-Chief.

President Bush chose to listen to General David Petraeus rather than congress.  General Petraeus argued for more troops in Iraq and a strategy shift from counterterrorism to counterinsurgency.  In counterterrorism the objective is to kill terrorists and worry about the collateral damage later.  Collateral damage equals dead civilians.  In a counterinsurgency strategy the objective is to protect the population so that a political system can take root and develop.  In order to be successful a counterinsurgency must win the people over, gain their trust, and partner with them to root out the terrorists.  That rules out collateral damage.

As we now know, President Bush and General Petraeus were wildly successful with their "surge" in Iraq.  Oddly enough, that's put President Obama in a fix.  You might think a proven success in Iraq would make Obama's decision for Afghanistan fairly straight forward.  Counterinsurgency was demonstrated to work where counterterrorism had failed.  If adapted to the situation in Afghanistan it's likely to be effective there as well, and certainly a better option than any of the likely alternatives.

Yet, President Obama prefers not to undertake his once favored counterinsurgency strategy, saying that we have an unreliable partner in the Karzai government.  But the shape of the Afghan government has undergone no significant changes between March and today.  On the other hand, Obama's approval ratings have steadily dropped. 

On the last day of March, 2009 Obama enjoyed a Rasmussen Approval Index of +11.  That means 11% more voters strongly approved of Obama's performance as president than strongly disapproved.  For overall approval Obama was at +20.  Fifty-nine percent of voters polled generally approved of his performance while 39% were generally disapproving of it.  Compare that with today.

On the last day of October, 2009 Obama's Approval Index was at -10.  That's a 21-point negative swing in seven months.  Overall disapproval, according to Rasmussen, is at -5, with 47% approving and 52% disapproving.  Which battle is Obama fighting, the political or the military?

Polls didn't matter to President Bush back in 2006, but they seem to matter very much to President Obama.  Obama is a product of the left, and he owes his political ascendancy to the left.  His point of view is from the left, something that he demonstrates from time to time.  By way of example, he has said on at least a couple of occasions that he is uncomfortable with the term "victory" as it might be applied to Afghanistan or Iran. 

All of which leads me to think that the decision is not the difficulty Obama faces at this time.  His decision was made months ago.  His difficulty is in the execution. 

Obama does not want military victory, but how does he square this with past declarations?  During his election campaign he argued that the central front in the war on terror was Afghanistan.  The war in Iraq was a mistake and a distraction from the real war.  Afghanistan.  Afghanistan, he said, was a war of necessity, a war we couldn't afford to lose. 

Maybe he thinks there is a third option somewhere between winning and losing, and that's what he is shooting for.  If there is it's a transient thing.  When you don't win you eventually lose.  But that would not be Obama's problem.  Eventually is in the future and public opinion has time to adjust.  Hence the delay and the re-examination of things once decided upon.  The longer he appears to delay a decision, the more time there will be for anti-war sentiment to grow.  Media coverage of the anti-war demonstrations will give him cover for choosing not to win this war. Time will ripen for his eventual bow to the "will of the people."  His base of support on the left will be positively delirious.

Comments

[Geoff Brown]

I am sure that President Bush did pay attention to politics in his surge decision. Any elected official represents a political party and has to consider his or her party's national support in a major decision. The difference is integrity: Bush did what needed doing. Obama will do what seems most expedient. But I think he does not, in fact, share the idea that a free and prosperous Afghanistan is possible and in America's interest. I think at some level he wants either American strength to fail or the Bush policy to fail, and it could be both.

[Tom Bowler]

I would agree that Bush paid attention to politics in his surge decision, but I would argue that his interest was in building the political support that would allow him to do what had to be done. I have been tempted to say that Obama will do what will gain him the political support he needs to stay in power, but I don't really think that's true.

When push comes to shove I believe Obama will do what he believes in. He is pushing his health care reform against great public opposition. He is a lefty at heart and he is pushing the country to the left. I can commend him for being true to his beliefs.

What I object to is his dishonesty about it. His push to the left is much more severe than voters were led to believe. And though he may believe that health care, cap and trade, and the rest of it are all good things, the question is, what's good about them? Are they intended to make the country a better, safer place to live, or are they intended to build the enduring progressive majority? Not all of us think that would be a good thing.