Why Obama Will Bail On Afghanistan

Obviously, Obama gets to make his own call here. All one can do is guess. But if you look at the dynamics as they are shaping up, it's difficult to predict that Obama opts to see Afghanistan through as a full scale war.

The newly appointed head of NATO and U.S. forces is said to urge an expansion of Afghan security forces and a revamped counterinsurgency strategy that focuses on making Afghan citizens feel safer.

The changes called for here are so significant, if Obama signs on, Bush gets removed from the equation and this completely becomes Obama's war. Think about how the Democrat Party is aligned. That's a big, big deal.

Add to that, this war has been dragging on already for eight years. That means that in the public's eye and the D peacenik's view, patience will be at a minimum for some positive change to take effect.

This war might still be winnable, but the notion that Afghanistan is somehow quickly going to turn around is a very bad bet. There's good reason to believe we'll be lucky to see any progress by the 2010 mid-terms. And anything looking like a successful resolution and a won war by 2012 is probably off the table.

So, does a very liberal Obama with a very liberal domestic policy he desperately wants to see enacted feel like carrying a potentially very unpopular war on his back at the same time? To get away with that, he'd need to find somewhere else to give concessions to the more liberal Dems in Congress and on the street.

But he's already facing trouble with them, as his domestic agenda now looks to be too liberal for America by half.

In this view, Obama would need to totally re-work his politics and electoral strategy to survive for very long. The challenges he faces are already significant enough. Now, if he wants to re-work Afghanistan, he also has to totally re-work himself.

Maybe he goes for it, maybe he won't. But it's incredibly difficult for me to imagine Afghanistan looking like a win for Obama in any shape, or form. His best bet is probably to blame as much of the failure as he can on Bush and bolt. The risks presented to his entire presidency from his own war in Afghanistan are likely far too great.

Lastly, if you want to truly keep up with what's happening on the ground in Afghanistan, now and going forward, consider supporting Michael Yon. He does a terrific job and could use the help.

Comments

[Fen]

Obama should be reading http://www.michaelyon-online.com/ to get a good ground view of whats at stake. Yon is correct in rebranding this the AfPak war. If he goes all wobbly, we'll be back in with higher stakes within 10 years. Assuming an anonymously delivered EMP pulse doesn't take us all down in the dark ages.

Its too bad Dems aren't serious enough to take the long view. And that they would take the rest of us down with them.

Same for the "patience" of Joe Public. We need to be there at least 20 years to make a difference.

[reliapundit]

the dem doves abandoned the svg in 1975 - two years after the last us combat troops had left.

they will do the same to afghanistan and iraq and israel - given the chance.

[firefirefire]

50 years is more like it......

0bama will bail.

[Xiaoding]

"Add to that, this war has been dragging on already for eight years. That means that in the public's eye and the D peacenik's view, patience will be at a minimum for some positive change to take effect.

This war might still be winnable..."

Oh, GOD!!

We WON the war in the first two days!! Followed by EIGHT YEARS of...what? In the name of God, WHAT?

[Xiaoding]

"D peacenik's view"

Ok, just thought I'd mention it is not just peaceniks who are against this war. Many conservatives, and just regular Americans, are getting tired, and fed up, with seeing their, their neighbors, kids and relatives, come home in boxes, for NOTHING.

[Brian King]

Came in from the Pundit. I think we'll see the worst of all worlds. A maintenance of force levels where they are now, but a retreat to the cities and fortresses. The open country will be even more open than it is now...and the President will hope it all holds together long enough to say "we made a good effort and now it is up the Afghan people to take it from here".

It really is an impossible mission, presidential politics aside.

[matt]

What is bizarre is that this was the strategy all along. Bush wanted to get Iraq under control before taking on Afghanistan. The whole thing was to redirect units to Afghanistan and then engage in a much different job. Afghanistan is basically 15th century warlords with AK's and RPG's and heroin money and cell phones outside of the cities, where the majority of the people live. There is little infrastructure and they have a culture of violence that goes back to prehistory, most likely.

And yet if we don't get it right,we lose big. The scumbags will take huge chunks of Afghanistan and N & S Waziristan. Heroin will flow, and the same mentality that gave us 9/11 will thrive.LUN

[JIMMY]

The biggest problem for Obama is not what to do (plenty of advice from all sides these days) but HOW to undertake a massive re-vamping of his domestic/foreign action plan.

He simply doesn't have the personal political experience that Clinton and even W Bush had to draw on. As has been said many times, Obama doesn't have enough "real world" managerial experience to draw on. In fact, the lessons he's largely learned from his past enchanted golden boy life is to plow on with what he thinks will work, and those around him flacking for him will make it work. Of course that only works when 100% of the poeple around you are on your side, not 45% (and dropping).

This hyper-hyped rookie sensation is done like dinner...

[John]

The problem for Obama if he bails on Afghanistan is that his administration's foreign policy strategy seems to be if they can keep al Qaida and other jihadists pre-occupied with battles overseas that prevent them from attacking America or U.S. civilian interests abroad, that frees people like Eric Holder and the partisan department heads at Justice to placate the left domestically by going after the CIA and trying to figure out how to close Gitmo and expand the rights of the captured jihadi.

But if he ends the efforts overseas while at the same time his people in Justice continue their current course, Obama's left totally without cover if any attack occurs on his watch, since the White House would be seen as doing nothing either on the domestic or the foreign side to combat terrorism. That's a pretty big gamble, and going by the poll numbers, the "Blame Bush" strategy isn't even working very well on the economy right now, so any attack would leave Obama with virtually no defense that he was "doing something' but it just didn't work.

[higo]

Of course Obama will bail. If Vegas opened a line on this, I would bet everything that I own. In fact, I'll go further. He'll pull out of the entire Middle East just about the time that Iran/China/France start bombing Israel to pebbles.

[mark l.]

timetables?

2010 midterm election.

[Toads]

Dan Riehl does half of Obama's leftist work for him.

By calling a leftist a 'liberal', you are ceding the battle to them upfront. Why give them words like 'liberal' and 'progressive', when in fact they are illiberal, rigid, and intolerant of other views?

The right is stupid too, for getting duped like this.

[southdakotaboy]

No matter what he does he is scr@@ed. If he stays the far left hate him. If he bails we get hit again under his watch and the Dems won't be trusted with the country for the next 50 years. It will be a big hit to because the muslim nut jobs will see that he is nothing but a weak coward.

[Xiaoding]

"And yet if we don't get it right,we lose big. The scumbags will take huge chunks of Afghanistan and N & S Waziristan."

To quote the guy from Madmen: WHO CARES.

"And yet if we don't get it right, we lose big. The scumbags will take huge chunks of Afghanistan and N & S Waziristan. Heroin will flow, and the same mentality that gave us 9/11 will thrive."

I don't see, what the first two sentences, have to do with the last sentence. And what does heroin have to do with the 911 mentality...unless you are suggesting the Joint Chiefs of Staff were high that day, which is a contention I would take seriously.

[Rich K]

In the big picture afghanistan is going to remain the same pile of dirt and rocks its been for the last 2000 years of its existance. Nothing we do is going to change that much. The russians tried hard ball and it failed. We and the coalition are trying softball with an occasional fast pitch to knock off the heavy hitters ( Taliban/Alqaida ) running the show.Iran obviously will support efforts to maintain the status quo as the arabs have done with the palis.The Pakis will try to maintain some kind of equilibrium with the pushtins to keep their asses covered.The drug cartels will add whatever they need to do to maintain the flow of their product.And far be it that china and russia add a bit of fuel to things at their whim. If anyone has a good idea as to how to end our involvment I have yet to see or hear it.And I believe thats because its just not possible to satisfy any of the parties involved as Ive outlined above.I saw george will put forth some ideas that have merit but without a brutal hammer being slammed down on the Pakis border territory to crush the ongoing back and forth long enough to withdraw with some kind of saving of face this is a never ending saga for us and the coalition. Im just being a realist and seeing that big picture as it relates to that pile of dirt and rocks over the centuries.Feel free to piss on me with zeal but thats my view from this side of the keyboard.

[David R. Graham]

"His best bet is probably to blame as much of the failure as he can on Bush and bolt."

From a tactical point of view, perhaps, yes. The strategic picture, perhaps, for him, does not commend this course, at least not personally.

Recall the narcissism, the megalomania, the pretension of personal world rule. These traits, widely remarked and although making the cat and his partner certifiable, drive decisions in such a personality, especially when other-than-personal considerations are non-existent, as in him and her.

There are powerful personal competitors of this cat and his Party in AFPAK. And a major revenue source.

Iran and Saudi Arabia/Syria/Egypt are not showing him personal competitors and I doubt that they will.

But AFPAK does, several of them. So also does East Africa, the current AQ center of gravity, and to a lesser extent, areas of North Africa.

He may bolt from AFPAK, for the reasons given, and blame GWB, but that leaves him with unaddressed personal opponents in the ME, genuine competitors for the role of world ruler.

Conclusion: it is at least possible that some combination of blame-GWB and bolting/threatening rhetoric will veil intensified spec-ops all over the ME, including AFPAK, to take down personal competitors.

It is also to be considered that DOD has pretty much been left alone to do its stuff since January 20 and that regardless of the cat's personal aversion to competitors anywhere on the planet, knowing how to fight them militarily is not something the cat ever learned to do. Indeed, he and his friends disparaged the profession. Now he needs it!

It appeals to me as wishful thinking to imagine that the vicissitudes of achieving his domestic goals matter at all to this cat or his partner. He does not have to balance anything as between domestic and foreign agendas. "[He] won.", there is no resisting his domestic agenda so he can address foreign goals as an independent compartment unrelated to domestic affairs.

So AFPAK is seen purely on its own terms, of which I see two: personal competition and money source.

The strategic decision will be made fundamentally on those grounds and probably has been made just so, at least as far the cat is concerned.

That said, he and his partner are a cat, not God (nor "God's partner," an insane claim if ever there was one). Cats are stealthy poachers. Love a dog and he will say, "You must be God." Love a cat and he will say, "I must be God."

Then there is the genuine national security reason for being in both Iraq and AFPAK as well as other places nearby and maintaining nation-state allies in the region (India, Israel, Turkey, Russia, etc.): tri-and multi-angulation on the Iran/East Africa/North Korea/China axis.

DOD, DOS, DOJ and other departments and agencies operate these concerns with variable accuracy and effectiveness but also regardless of the personal vagaries of the White House's current occupant. The nation has a national security infrastructure which transcends administrations, thank God.

The English of all of which is: the strategic decisions have already been made by the cat and by the NSI and we are seeing sparks from collisions.

Perhaps in corroboration, I note the presence today of a commenter using a Chinese-language handle. This is something the PLA would consider of vital interest.

[ZRegime]

I would add one more small but (at least to me) important question: Why is it that I have not heard, not once since January, anyone querying Obummer on what he's doing to hunt down Osama Bin D-Bag?

Jes' askin', youuu knowww...

[Papa Ray]

"The nation has a national security infrastructure which transcends administrations, thank God."

Yes, but don't forget that all the money flows from Congress. It is hard to defend and provide security when your beans and bullets are cut down to a trickle.

Which if Obama serves out his first term will happen. The money is needed elsewhere.

Yes, Michael Yon called it four years ago when he was roundly criticized and told to piss off when he stated that we were losing in Afghanistan. He also warned that no matter how many bad guys we killed in the Afghan...if we allowed them to have safe haven in Pakistan and in Africa it would be a never ending war.

Rome had this problem and they lost not only their wars but their civilization.

If we quit in Afghanistan we might as well pull all of our Troops, equipment and assets back inside our own borders and set up air tight security. Because they will plan, train, equip and come to our cities and do what they have promised for years.

Destroy us.

Papa Ray
West Texas

[RebeccaH]

If Obama abandons Afghanistan and it goes horribly wrong (as it will), can he deal with that damage to his presidency? Especially if America is subjected to another bold terrorist attack? He's caught between a rock and rock, this time, which means if he doesn't finally show some spine here, he's doomed to a one-term, ridiculed-forever presidential legacy. Even Jimmy Carter will look good by comparison.