The Generals’ War
The Pentagon’s pre-emptive strike came with the leak of Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s confidential review of the Afghan war to Bob Woodward of The Washington Post.
McChrystal’s painting of the military picture was grim.
“Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near-term (next 12 months) — while Afghan security capacity matures — risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible.”
If I don’t get the troops to reverse the Taliban gains, said McChrystal, we face “mission failure.” A Saigon ending to the Afghan war. Word was quickly out that McChrystal wanted 40,000 troops, to bring U.S. force levels to 110,000 and coalition forces to 140,000.
Last week, a three-hour review was held at the White House. McChrystal participated by teleconference. His strategy — fight a counterinsurgency against the Taliban by taking and holding population centers, protecting the Afghan people and building up Kabul’s army, economy and government — was challenged.
Among those urging a smaller U.S. footprint and a strategic shift from fighting the Taliban to killing al-Qaida in Pakistan with drone and Special Forces strikes was Joe Biden.
McChrystal answered Biden in a speech and Q-and-A session in London, all but saying Joe ought to stick to the rubber-chicken circuit and leave war to the warriors. A “counter-terrorist focus” like the Biden strategy, said McChrystal, would lead straight to “Chaos-istan.”
Would he support it?
“The short answer is no,” said McChrystal. “Waiting does not prolong a favorable outcome. This effort will not remain winnable indefinitely, and nor will public support” — a shot at what critics are calling Obama’s dithering in deciding on McChrystal’s troop request.
Obama, said to be “furious,” called McChrystal to Copenhagen for a 25-minute face-to-face on Air Force One.
Yet McChrystal is now quoted in Newsweek about any half measures to reverse a deteriorating situation. “You can’t hope to contain the fire by letting just half the building burn.”
Sunday, National Security Adviser Gen. James Jones said of the McChrystal-Obama meeting, “I am sure they exchanged direct views.”
Jones went on to suggest McChrystal’s recommendations were merely the general’s “own opinion” of “what he thinks his role within that strategy is.” Other factors must go into the final decisions on strategy and force levels. Among them, said Jones, is the election debacle in Kabul that made Tehran’s vote look like Iowa.
Jones tossed ice water on McChrystal’s urgency. Afghanistan is “in no imminent danger of falling to the Taliban,” and al-Qaida has “less than 100″ fighters in the country, “no bases, no buildings to launch attacks either on us or our allies.”
As for McChrystal’s public campaign, said Jones, “It’s better for military advice to come up through the chain of command.”
Concentrating the minds of all on Sunday was news that 10 U.S. soldiers were killed, two by an Afghan solider, eight when their remote outpost near Pakistan was attacked by hundreds of Taliban.
As Obama approaches the pivotal decision of his presidency, here is where the major players seem to be lining up.
McChrystal believes so strongly in the need for 40,000 troops he could resign his command if denied them. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Adm. Michael Mullen seems to be in the McChrystal camp.
Gen. David Petraeus, regional commander for Afghanistan and Iraq, has yet to commit himself. But as architect of the surge in Iraq, he would seem to support McChrystal. What Petraeus will do, if the McChrystal request is denied, is the big question in Washington. For Petraeus reportedly sees himself as a presidential candidate.
From her own words, Hillary is with McChrystal: “Some people say, well, al-Qaida’s no longer in Afghanistan. If Afghanistan were taken over by the Taliban, I can’t tell you how fast al-Qaida would be back in Afghanistan.”
This challenges what Gen. Jones said Sunday when he minimized the al-Qaida threat in Afghanistan and the Taliban threat to Kabul.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates will be a key player. It was he who relieved Gen. David McKiernan of his command in May, saying we need “fresh thinking,” and turned Afghanistan over to McChrystal, whom he described as a soldier who shared the perspective of Petraeus. Can Gates come down against the general he appointed only months ago?
Yet Biden is not alone. Jones is receptive to his views, as are a majority of Obama’s party on the Hill, as are White House aides who see Afghanistan as Obama’s Vietnam, as is most of the nation.
Obama is thus being told by the McChyrstal camp: If you do not send the 40,000, you lose the war and the presidency. He is being told by the Biden camp: If you send the 40,000, Afghanistan will be your Vietnam; you will not win it by 2012; and you will lose the presidency.
Look for Obama, not a natural Decider, to split the difference and send a few thousand U.S. troops to train the Afghan army.
Patrick Buchanan is the author of the new book Churchill, Hitler, and ‘The Unnecessary War,’ now available in paperback.
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This scenario bears an eerie resemblance to the Truman MacArthur settoo almost 60yrs ago!
McChrystal, or one of his staff, forwarded his recommendations to the Washington Post as well as to the Executive.
Truman had refused to share information with the Republican leadership in Congress. Robert Taft and Joe Martin then contacted MacArthur and asked for his assessment.
MacArthur did so and it was published. We know what then happened and one wonders how long it will happen again!
Hillary Clinton is quoted as saying “If Afghanistan were taken over by the Taliban, I can’t tell you how fast al-Qaida would be back in Afghanistan.” For once I agree with her – in this case her literal meaning though she clealy intended to imply the opposite. She can’t tell you because there is no way that she could know if al-Qaida would or could re-enter Afghanistan. They don’t need it as a base and would only be inviting another US onslaught. Hillary is engaging in scare tactics to suggest that creation of a terrorist state would be the likely outcome. It is just as likely, if not moreso, that Afghanistan would revert to being a scarcely governed state dominated by warlords and narcotraffickers.
If the Taliban took over Afghanistan, and WE RECOGNIZED them as the legitimate government (as both a target for future strikes for acts of war, but also as whom to negotiate with and do the diplomacy thing).
Had we recognized them in 2001, Osama would be dead or in a cell at a federal prison.
They aren’t stupid, and looking over the past decade, I can’t be sure less evil. They all but ended opium production (which we still can’t do with all our weapons and troops).
We don’t have to love them, nor respect anything about them, but if we recognize them then we get to deal with a state instead of an amorphous mass with a few corrupt elected people (the old worse evil war-lords who became our allies) who control parts of some cities.
They would not act in our interests, but I doubt they are stupid or suicidal enough to act against their own. The stick scatters, the carrot gathers.
tz- you make a compelling case to discontinue the clamor over initiating a counter-insurgency strategy and concede with reality- we should never have attempted to “nation build” a territory ruled by tribal warlords. However, even Buchanan has acknowledged that the Taliban were never willing to give up Bin Laden and military action was essential. Imagine this scenario as well: Bush decides that we only implement a Special force strike on al-qadea (in Afghanistan and elsewhere), and continue to let the Taliban remain in power. There would be out roar not just from the neocons, and Bush would be accused of following the same, failed policies the Clinton administration pushed for. Now, I hardly subscribe with this line of thinking as our foreign, counter-terrorism efforts have been thwarted in the one place most Americans believed was the primary fight. Most of all, neo-liberals can no longer ignore what the gaping flaw in the Afghanistan plan poses; the risk of losing 500 plus troops to prop up a illegitimate, “democratic” government that as you explain- are no more trust-worthy than the Taliban.
Philip, totally agree with your reading of Clinton’s comments. What’s awful is that common sense has no place in “serious expert” thinking on al-Qeada returning to Afghanistan. To wit:
Pakistan – very limited drone attacks, almost never US commando raids.
Afghanistan – quick striking drones, air power, and large sorties of airborne soldiers.
Which would you choose?
One point – Afghanistan is already a “a scarcely governed state dominated by warlords and narcotraffickers.”
I very much doubt that the Taliban would ever control Afghanistan again in any case. They are a largely an ethnic Pushtu movement now and could not impose their will on the Tadjics and other groups in the North.
Phillip is right, Afghanistan is ungovernable. And there is this. If al-Qaida did settle in a post-American Afghanistan, they would be far more vulnerable to our assassins in that turmoil than they are in Pakistan. A post-American Afghanistan would be the playground of Iran, India and Russia. We can then go back to intriguing in Latin America where we belong.