The Redhunter

... it is important to recall why America and our allies were compelled to fight a war in Afghanistan in the first place. We did not ask for this fight. On September 11, 2001, nineteen men hijacked four airplanes and used them to murder nearly 3,000 people. They struck at our military and economic nerve centers. They took the lives of innocent men, women, and children without regard to their faith or race or station. Were it not for the heroic actions of the passengers on board one of those flights, they could have also struck at one of the great symbols of our democracy in Washington, and killed many more.

Excellent. Pity that he doesn't say this ever week. George W Bush stopped making the case for Afghanistan and Iraq and it cost him politically. Here's the paradox: Bush could have had all the troops and money for either early on, but he didn't ask for them. When he finally decided he needed more troops for Iraq, it became very difficult to get them. Obama faces the same problem.

Col. Harry Summers made much the same point about Lyndon Johnson in his seminal work On Strategy; A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War, in 1982. He pointed out that Johnson didn't think he needed a declaration of war in 1964, so he didn't seek one. By 1968, when he did need one, he couldn't get it.

As such, Obama needs to make the case for Afghanistan on a regular basis. Not just one big speech and then back to healthcare or global warming or whatever, but he needs to do this again and again. If he doesn't he's going to find it very difficult to get the money and support that he needs to see this through.

Then, in early 2003, the decision was made to wage a second war in Iraq. The wrenching debate over the Iraq War is well-known and need not be repeated here. It is enough to say that for the next six years, the Iraq War drew the dominant share of our troops, our resources, our diplomacy, and our national attention - and that the decision to go into Iraq caused substantial rifts between America and much of the world.

Now we're back to typical Obama pettyness: "Hey everyone, none of this is my fault! Blame George W Bush!" The man is incapable of giving a speech in which he doesn't do this. This quite in contrast to another wartime leader who inherited a mess, one Winston Spencer Churchill, who instead of blaming his predecessors just got on with it. Follow the link and listen to Churchill's speech; note that he talks about "we," while with Obama it's always me me me.

He plays the blame game again and again, and of course it's all about him. I'll spare you the quotes as you can read the transcript for yourself.

As your Commander-in-Chief, I owe you a mission that is clearly defined, and worthy of your service. That is why, after the Afghan voting was completed, I insisted on a thorough review of our strategy. Let me be clear: there has never been an option before me that called for troop deployments before 2010, so there has been no delay or denial of resources necessary for the conduct of the war. Instead, the review has allowed me ask the hard questions, and to explore all of the different options along with my national security team, our military and civilian leadership in Afghanistan, and with our key partners. Given the stakes involved, I owed the American people - and our troops - no less.

This review is now complete.

Oh bullcrap. The reason he dithered is that he wanted to push healthcare as far in the congress as he could without making its more leftist members mad at him.

And as Commander-in-Chief, I have determined that it is in our vital national interest to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan. After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home.

This is less than the 40 - 45,000 that Frederick and Kimberly Kagan recommended, and that McChrystal apparently requested, but we'll apparently get 5,000 from NATO as well. The question is any or how many of those NATO troops will be encumbered with rules of engagement so restrictive as to make them useless, like the German troops are now.

I'm not quite sure if he's promising to bring home all troops after 18 months, or just these "surge" forces. Most likely it's the latter, which would make this surge similar to the one in Iraq, where we went from 15 to 20 brigades for about 18 months, then brought the surge forces home, and have slowly drawn down further since then.

To meet that goal, we will pursue the following objectives within Afghanistan. We must deny al Qaeda a safe-haven. We must reverse the Taliban's momentum and deny it the ability to overthrow the government. And we must strengthen the capacity of Afghanistan's Security Forces and government, so that they can take lead responsibility for Afghanistan's future.

We will meet these objectives in three ways. First, we will pursue a military strategy that will break the Taliban's momentum and increase Afghanistan's capacity over the next 18 months.

The 30,000 additional troops that I am announcing tonight will deploy in the first part of 2010 - the fastest pace possible - so that they can target the insurgency and secure key population centers. They will increase our ability to train competent Afghan Security Forces, and to partner with them so that more Afghans can get into the fight. And they will help create the conditions for the United States to transfer responsibility to the Afghans.

All good here. Securing the key population centers is the most fundamental aspect of counterinsurgency there is, as I've said about a kazillion times.

Because this is an international effort, I have asked that our commitment be joined by contributions from our allies.

Ha. They'll betray us, just as they have in the past. The same countries that landed tens of thousands of troops in Normany on one day alone seem to have trouble ponying up more than a handful now, and this with far larger populations.

Taken together, these additional American and international troops will allow us to accelerate handing over responsibility to Afghan forces, and allow us to begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011.

We shall see. Obama will find this timeline easier to read on a teleprompter than to actually carry out. The oft said phrase, "the enemy gets a vote," is true. You don't have to read much history, or know much Clausewitz, to know that events seldom unfold as expected.

Second, we will work with our partners, the UN, and the Afghan people to pursue a more effective civilian strategy, so that the government can take advantage of improved security.

This effort must be based on performance. The days of providing a blank check are over. President Karzai's inauguration speech sent the right message about moving in a new direction. And going forward, we will be clear about what we expect from those who receive our assistance.

On the good side Obama seems to recognize that our enemy is not Hamid Karzai, and that for better or worse he's the president of Afghanistan and that we've got to work with him. Constantly attacking him will only make him wary that we're going to abandon him, and this in turn will cause him to seek "an accommodation" with the Taliban.

We need to understand that just as with Iraq, the lack of performance was because the Afghans couldn't be sure we wouldn't cut and run on them. Why should they give it their all if we weren't committed? Look, if I was a local governor unsure about the United States, I wouldn't want to make the Taliban too mad as I might have to live under their rule in the near future. In fact, I'b be sorely tempted to "make my arrangements" with them, just in case. In Iraq, Prime Minister Maliki and his government performed much better once the surge got underway, and the realized that yes we were committed to win.

On the down side,, Obama can't just announce anything without blaming his predecessor - "the days of providing a blank check are over" - his pettiness doesn't know any bounds.

Third, we will act with the full recognition that our success in Afghanistan is inextricably linked to our partnership with Pakistan.

We are in Afghanistan to prevent a cancer from once again spreading through that country. But this same cancer has also taken root in the border region of Pakistan. That is why we need a strategy that works on both sides of the border.

In the past, we too often defined our relationship with Pakistan narrowly. Those days are over. Moving forward, we are committed to a partnership with Pakistan that is built on a foundation of mutual interests, mutual respect, and mutual trust.

"Mutual respect" with a nation where Sharia is the law of the land. This sounds like Bush 41 and 43 all over again. Where's that "change" again?

And of course there's that "in the past" blame again.

Ok ok, I know we have to work with the Pakistani government whether we like them or not. But I don't think we need to listen to the left anymore tell us that it's only the conservatives who are in bed with dictators and thugs and such.

...there are those who acknowledge that we cannot leave Afghanistan in its current state, but suggest that we go forward with the troops that we have. But this would simply maintain a status quo in which we muddle through, and permit a slow deterioration of conditions there.

He's certainly right here. This is a point I and many others have made time and again.

...there are those who oppose identifying a timeframe for our transition to Afghan responsibility. Indeed, some call for a more dramatic and open-ended escalation of our war effort - one that would commit us to a nation building project of up to a decade. I reject this course because it sets goals that are beyond what we can achieve at a reasonable cost, and what we need to achieve to secure our interests. Furthermore, the absence of a timeframe for transition would deny us any sense of urgency in working with the Afghan government.

I understand the second argument, in which a timeline gives us leverage and the Afghanis incentive. John McCain gives a good rebuttal:

A date for withdrawal sends exactly the wrong message to both our friends and our enemies - in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the entire region - all of whom currently doubt whether America is committed to winning this war. A withdrawal date only emboldens Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, while dispiriting our Afghan partners and making it less likely that they will risk their lives to take our side in this fight.

"Success is the real exit strategy. When we have achieved our goals in Afghanistan, our troops should begin to return home with honor, but that withdrawal should be based on conditions on the ground, not arbitrary deadlines.

Obama, however, isn't interested in winning. He's interested in getting the whole thing off the table so he can get on with socializing the United States

Back to the president:

Over the past several years, we have lost that balance, and failed to appreciate the connection between our national security and our economy.... All told, by the time I took office the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan approached a trillion dollars.

Grrrr. The man is insufferable.

Obama goes on for some time more, but it's all boilerplate blather and not worth quoting.

Conclusions

My first thought after reading the speech was, "he took all these months to come up with this?" The strategy he came up with is nothing remarkable. Much of the speech is boilerplate and there's not a lot of details.

This increase in troops might be enough to do the trick, but by shorting McChrystal 10,000 he's making it more difficult to win. Also, while Obama may be able to claim credit if it works, he certainly will take the blame if it doesn't. He should have chosen "the full McChrystal," which stands a better chance of success, and he could still have claimed credit because it was he who appointed McChrystal as top dog in Afghanistan back in June of this year.

The hardest part of reading any Obama speech is getting past his incredible pettiness and lack of class. Churchill and Roosevelt spoke about challenges and tried to rally the nation, with Obama it's all about him, how smart he is; his speeches are full of "I" "I" I"I. All leaders think they inherited a mess when they took over; that's why they ran in the first place, to "clean things up." But they don't say so time and time again. He is the most narcissistic, vain, and arrogant president I've ever read about, exceeding that of even Theodore Roosevelt or Woodrow Wilson.

One gets the unmistakable impression that Obama doesn't really care about winning. When George W Bush finally realized that the Rumsfeld-Abizaid-Casey strategy wasn't working in Iraq, he appointed a new team and gave them what we had to get the job done. There were no timelines (though surely he knew that there was a political one lurking in the background).

Indeed you can't help but think that he's ordering this troop increase because he wants to get it off the table as a political issue. My guess is that he figured he'd send just enough troops to keep the right happy, but not go with "the full McChrystal," so that he might have some credibility left with his base. In other words, the whole thing was just a big political decision.

As I said earlier, Obama dithered over this decision not because he wanted to conduct a " thorough review of our strategy," but because he wanted to push healthcare as far in the congress as he could without making its more leftist members mad at him. The whole thing is political.

More importantly, the man just can't come out and say "let's win this thing!" No, he approaches it as a policywonk would. There's nothing wrong in formulating policy that way, but the reality is that issues, most of all that of warfare, is about passion. Winning requires passion because political leaders require support as much as anything else.

Politically, he's in the odd position of having most of the right congratulate him and the left attack him. More on this in future posts, but from what I can tell his base is furious that he didn't surrender Afghanistan and withdraw willy-nilly.