Albert R. Hunt: Obama should remember Ike and Korea
— For former Vice President Dick Cheney, who wants to go all out for victory, or for Democratic Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, who wants to get out as soon as possible, the right decision in Afghanistan is easy.
President Barack Obama, and even some Republicans, wish it were that simple. The problem is many of the contentions and conclusions, on all sides, are oversimplified, even dubious.
This starts with Cheney’s charge that the president is dithering. How Obama responds to General Stanley McChrystals recommendation to send at least 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan will shape his presidency and U.S. foreign policy for years to come. What participants describe as an intense and rigorous consideration of options isn’t dithering.
Also dubious is the contention of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel that any decision is predicated on a do-over of Afghanistans August presidential election. This is a nation with no history of elections or democratic institutions. Whether there is a Nov. 7 run-off vote or not — over the weekend, the chief challenger urged supporters to boycott a vote because of irregularities — Hamid Karzai will still be president and little will have changed.
Taliban and al-Qaeda
Then there’s the contention that the Taliban isnt the enemy; its al-Qaeda that attacked the U.S. on Sept. 11. True.
Yet a McChrystal skeptic such as Democratic Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, a central player in the deliberations, suggested it isnt easy to decouple these elements. For al- Qaeda, he notes, it’s an awful lot harder to plan attacks when they are boxed in, harassed and living in fear.
Anyone who read the riveting four-part series in the New York Times by reporter David Rohde on his seven months in Taliban captivity would conclude these Islamic terrorists have a more advanced infrastructure than is commonly supposed and share many of al-Qaedas objectives.
On the other side, Cheney’s argument that Obama has already decided Afghanistan is a war of necessity and thus should give the generals whatever they want raises disturbing questions. Cheney, who 7 years ago forecast the Iraq War would be short and simple and declared that the Taliban regime out of business, permanently, Ohas a checkered track record.
Vietnam Syndrome
Decision-making suffers when every action is predicated on the automatic assumption that the previous decision was correct. Four decades ago, a State Department East Asia expert, James C. Thomson Jr., devastatingly detailed how that syndrome was at the heart of the Johnson administrations failed Vietnam policies.
The president decides, and the counselors, including the military, advise, says Gordon Goldstein, author of a highly acclaimed biography of McGeorge Bundy, an architect of the Vietnam War who came to believe that the Johnson escalation was mindless and relied too much on poor advice from military commanders. (They once argued for using tactical nuclear weapons in Laos.)
Today, Americans celebrate generals such as McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, and David Petraeus, who commands U.S. forces in the Middle East and Central Asia. These are intellectually gifted patriots. Theyve also never been elected to anything and sometimes reflect a narrow prism.
Counterinsurgency Plan
McChrystals 66-page memorandum, first reported by the Washington Posts Bob Woodward, reads like a classic manifesto for counterinsurgency, and advocates a tactic to defend the Afghans from all threats. Sending 40,000 more troops is one middle-course proposal and the one receiving the most attention.
Yet, given the size, population and complexity of Afghanistan, experts say any classic counterinsurgency strategy there could require 250,000 to 300,000 American combat troops, maybe more, with significant casualties for years.
Thats impossible without the sustained support of the U.S. public, which few believe would exist.
Hawks such as Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona point to the 2007 Iraqi surge as a model. The Anwar uprising was fueled by the Iraqis resentment of foreign terrorists. The dreadful Taliban are Afghans and Pakistanis. And the claims of success in Iraq may be premature, as the recent terrorist carnage in Baghdad demonstrated.
Terrorist Attack
The White House insists domestic U.S. political considerations arent a factor in the discussions. How can they not be? A few weeks ago, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in an interview with Fortune magazine, warned that any pullback would result in another Sept. 11. If you want another terrorist attack in the U.S., abandon Afghanistan, she said.
Even the biggest skeptics in the administration, in particular Vice President Joe Biden, dont want to cut and run. And Graham Allison, a former Defense Department official who teaches at Harvard University, says there is a strong consensus among terrorism experts that al-Qaeda is planning another attack well before any decision on Afghanistan.
In the first year of both the past two presidents, al- Qaeda has attacked on American soil. he says, noting the Sept. 11 and the February 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. We should anticipate they will try to make their mark again soon.
Noose Is Tightening
Ironically, Allison says the threat from al-Qaeda may be heightened by the success of an Obama policy that has killed many leaders of the terrorist group in Pakistan with missile strikes by drones. The noose is tightening and they may want to do something dramatic before departing, he says.
None of this makes Obamas decision any easier.
In talking to policy makers, the probability is Obama will settle on an increase of fewer than 40,000 U.S. troops.
and adopt a scaled- back version of McChrystals anti-insurgency plan. The pivotal figure inside the administration is Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
All the oft-cited analogies — Iraq, the Russians in Afghanistan, even Vietnam — are imperfect. One example Obama may want to think about: that of a U.S. president who reversed his harder-line campaign posture and settled for a compromise course that was attacked by conservative Republicans as appeasement.
That was Dwight D. Eisenhower and Korea in 1953. The U.S. still has 28,500 troops on the Peninsula more than a half century later, and it worked out.
(Albert R. Hunt is the executive editor for Washington at Bloomberg News
