[Originally published in the Barre Times-Argus and Rutland Herald.]
Why does President Obama believe it is necessary to “win” in Afghanistan? Of course, this question begs the issue of what “winning” means and whether it is even remotely possible. Certainly, historically, it rarely, if ever, has been.
The president is, by all counts, a thoughtful and intelligent man. He has grasped the important issues involved in Iraq and has moved to a position that will end our military presence there in 2011. He appears to be uninterested in waging war against Iran. He is doing his level best to solve the intractable Palestine situation. These are all good, smart things.
But again, why is he intent on at least maintaining and probably increasing our level of military activity in Afghanistan? Which of his advisers is advocating that policy? Perhaps the answers can be found in his 2008 campaign rhetoric, his lack of military experience, and his hopes for increased bipartisanship.
During the presidential campaign of 2008, Barack Obama pleased many Americans by saying it was not in our national interest to be in Iraq and that he would get us out. As a companion part of that position, he said incessantly that we had been fools to abandon Afghanistan in favor of lraq. In other words, he supported our invasion of Afghanistan and criticized its abandonment, in contrast to his strong negative feelings about our Iraq adventure. He thus created a situation in which, ultimately, he would find it difficult to change his Afghan policy without being accused by his detractors of “flipflopping”.
Barack Obama of 2008 had literally no military experience or background and thus little credibility with either the military or its American supporters. If he wanted to have any credibility with the right and with pro-military congressmen, he may have felt that he had to balance his negativity on Iraq with a pro-military stance on Afghanistan. He does speak favorably and often about increasing bipartisanship.
He is probably a bit defensive about his own lack of experience in military affairs and wants to stay on the good side of military to placate the far right and not be referred to as “soft on terrorism” – all political, as opposed to military issues.
As president-elect Obama, he has found himself in a completely different situation. None of his old political associates had much experience with military matters. President Obama has hired retired General James Jones as his National Security Advisor, retained a Republican-appointed Secretary of Defense, Bob Gates, and completely revamped his military team with Generals Petraeus and McCrystal as his go-to leaders on Afghanistan.
It’s a fair guess that two highly ambitious, educated, articulate, relatively young generals would be disinclined to admit that they could not meet the military needs of the administration – “winning” in Afghanistan. Clearly, they have said that the job can be done, albeit with much involvement on the civil side, yet they have no example of its ever having been accomplished!
America often has a way of re-fighting its last war and Afghanistan is no exception. The notion that there will be a literal repeat of 9/11 is pretty absurd. yet our defenses are all designed to thwart that attack! With all the current security involved in US air travel and the fact that there has not been a repeat in eight years, that approach seems pretty unlikely. The same can be said of the “refuge” theory that stipulates that terrorists must have training camps like pre-9/11 Afghanistan in order to pull off another attack of some kind. All they really need is a safehouse in a part of the world where they will not be likely to be watched. That opens up half the world for training and planning.
So, it would seem that President Obama is “motivated” in his Afghan policy, not by any personal experience or conviction that he is on the right course, but rather by his own lack of those attributes and his concomitant reliance on his military establishment, coupled with his own political imperatives, which play an important, perhaps even dominant role in his motivation.
Assuming that “winning” will continue to be illusory, our best way out of Afghanistan probably will be the inevitable decrease of support for that war in the American electorate. That would make every additional day we stay there a major part of the President’s negative legacy. Afghanistan is, after all, Obama’s war.
Haviland Smith is a retired CIA Station Chief who served in East and West Europe, the Middle East and as Chief of the Counterterrorism Staff.
