Tonight, the Obama Presidency will have an LBJ moment, precipitating a descent from popular support. The bully pulpit is exhausted; its use poorly advised and there has been no substantive follow through. There are two significant failures developing: healthcare and national security. One in limbo; one a trap.The healthcare effort has wandered aimlessly for months now. Congressional leadership is an oxymoron. It has been for years, particularly in the Democratic Party, so this should come as no shock. The surprise is that no one from the executive has stepped in with an appropriate boot to move it off high center. President Obama's Secretary of State and her confidants are a source of much of the poor advice he has received on the diplomatic front. It is a cloistered group that has avoided an infusion of fresh ideas. Early on they shunned General Zinni, leaving him casting an oath against Democrats, and them without a perspective often not appreciated when he was on active duty, but deferred to nonetheless. But it is the Department of Defense, a relic of the last administration, where Obama has suffered the greatest indignation and he simply keeps going back for more.
The first hint that President Obama was following rather than leading the Department of Defense (DoD) was in the first 24 hours of his Presidency. That day he was called upon to demonstrate resolve (or some characteristic crafted to appeal to him) by approving a strike against terrorists. This managed to bloody his hands by attribution within a few hours in office. It was a strike that no doubt could have been authorized by the previous administration and carried out before or during transition or maybe didn't even require a Presidential decision at all. People have been and will be killed in the name of the United States without direct Presidential action as a matter of course. If we are micromanaging the battlefield in Westmorland fashion as this would indicate we have big problems. There was nothing in the approval sought for that strike that called for Presidential intervention except for the purpose of desensitizing him to his responsibilities; unless he personally asked for that opportunity to look Presidential. And if he did that, all the more shame.
Obama's DoD is an anachronism; he chose to maintain its previous leadership; really bad decision. The administration is only now getting its sea legs while adrift in the ocean of national security issues. DoD and the White House both appear to be looking backward rather than forward with this plan for Afghanistan. And they have offered up a replay of the Iraq surge as a solution to a very different problem. First, understand that the surge in Iraq accomplished nothing. To attribute a reduction of American casualties to the surge is a post hoc fallacy. To attribute stability in Iraq to the surge is a fantasy; it is not stabile. But that will only become apparent once we have departed and can blame the Iraqis for the eventual morass. So, you might argue that a surge might be the right solution for this problem. It won't be. Senator Webb has accurately pointed out that Afghanistan is more Lebanon; not Viet Nam, not Iraq, not anything else we can reliably use as a metaphor. Actually you cannot be certain how well the Lebanon parallel works, for at least there was a tradition of complex if not strong centralized governance with respect for majority rule and minority rights.
Nevertheless, what is being served up tonight is leftovers. It looks like a position designed to serve domestic political goals rather than achieve strategic international objectives. Here is what is being offered: support for a corrupt government that has derailed the legitimate democratic election of its opposition; a military operational approach aimed at an objective that serves no purpose for American national security (and will make domestic objectives unaffordable); and credible deniability as the effort in Afghanistan yields both unintended consequences and ultimate frustration. When it goes south, the fact that the requested 40,000 troops was reduced to 30,000 will provide the fulcrum for criticism that military advice was not followed. If you are going to throw in with them, best to wrap them in the decision. Instead, they are left with the “we told you we needed more and you failed to take the best advice of your commander” criticism. So we have a lose, lose, lose situation for the President and the initiation of a drift toward a one term Presidency.
A long time ago it was evident that whoever became President this year, success would be a challenge. That was simply result of the conditions handed from the last eight years and even without complicating missteps like this and failures like healthcare reform. The sad part is that though there are people out there in the world who deserve our support and others who should be dead, this decision will be detrimental to those we owe a debt of gratitude and provide those who we should pursue the perceived moral high ground and a new lease on life.
