Michael Crowley: Why is Obama repeating Bush's Iraq mistakes...in Afghanistan?
[Michael Crowley is a journalist and political commentator for The New Republic.]
With the Iraq war spinning out of control in mid-2005, retired Marine General James L. Jones spoke with his old friend Peter Pace, the incoming chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Jones, who is now Barack Obama's national security advisor, had been sounded out for the Joint Chiefs job but demurred. One reason: He felt that civilian leaders in Washington were warping the military planning process. "Military advice is being influenced on a political level," Jones warned Pace, according to Bob Woodward's book State of Denial. Jones's warning squared with other reports at the time that U.S. commanders in Iraq felt pressure to keep troop levels low. Faced with a growing Democratic onslaught, the Bush White House was all too determined to pretend that the war was under control.
Four years later, Jones visited U.S. military commanders in Afghanistan. As it happened, Jones was joined on his trip by Woodward, who reported in The Washington Post on July 1 that Jones had warned the commanders against requesting more manpower in the wake of President Obama's approval earlier this year of 21,000 more troops. According to Woodward, Jones cautioned that Obama would have a "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot"--or WTF (as in, "What the fuck?")--moment were he to get such a request anytime soon. Jones was even more explicit in an interview with the McClatchy news service. When Obama originally increased troop levels, Jones said, military leaders had agreed that "there would be a year from the time the decision was made before they would ever come back and ask for any more."
Although other officials quickly disavowed Jones's remarks, it was clear that Jones had committed much the same sin that drove his disgust toward the Bushies. "There is pressure being brought to bear on generals," says a congressional aide who closely tracks Afghanistan policy. And, with the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan reportedly gearing up to request tens of thousands more troops this fall, it was an early sign that the Obama administration could fall prey to some of the politically driven mistakes that helped turn the Iraq war into a fiasco. Indeed, that's why recent commentary warning that Afghanistan could be to Obama what Vietnam was to Lyndon B. Johnson--a foreign quagmire that smothers a Democratic president's ambitious social agenda--may miss the point. The real danger for Barack Obama is not that he will follow in the footsteps of LBJ. It is that he will repeat the errors of George W. Bush.
Until early 2007, Bush foolishly tried to limit America's presence in Iraq. His initial approach was defined by the experience of Army General Eric Shinseki, who was publicly rebuked by senior Bush officials after testifying that several hundred thousand men would be necessary to stabilize the country. (Bush ultimately invaded with about 130,000 troops.) In the months that followed the invasion, press leaks indicated that commanders who knew that their forces were overextended were reticent about asking Washington for more boots on the ground. Generals were pressured, usually by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, to find ways to bring home American forces as quickly as possible.
The administration also exaggerated progress in Iraq, both raising expectations and dashing its credibility. Standing up Iraqi security forces was presented as the path to an American exit well before those forces were anywhere near ready to shoulder the burden. And Bush allowed the Iraq war to become a self-justifying engagement, in which saving American "face" and denying Islamist insurgents a victory became a core rationale for the war effort. Although Bush ultimately reversed course on the most important of these factors when he finally ordered his audacious January 2007 troop surge, his slow recognition of these mistakes probably prolonged and worsened the war.
People involved in Afghanistan policy fret that a similar dynamic could be evolving in the Obama administration. The bluntest among them is Anthony Cordesman, a former aide to John McCain now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who advised the recent strategy review conducted by General Stanley McChrystal, the new Afghanistan commander installed by Obama earlier this year. "What frightens me most," Cordesman said at a late-August panel at the Brookings Institution, "is that there is very sharp pressure on General McChrystal and on Ambassador Eikenberry from the White House and the National Security Council not to ask for specific additions in resources when they come back in September or October."
Cordesman and others have evidence to back up their case. One data point is a mysterious meeting Defense Secretary Robert Gates held with McChrystal in Belgium last month. The trip was oddly secretive--unannounced beforehand and with no reporters in tow. But two sources with ties to the McChrystal team say that Gates specifically told the general, then midway through the 60-day policy review that he completed last week, not to include any troop requests as part of the review. Perhaps not coincidentally, the meeting--which also included Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen, CENTCOM chief David Petraeus, and Pentagon undersecretary for policy Michele Flournoy--came just a few days after The Washington Post reported that McChrystal was likely to ask for many more troops. Sure enough, last week, McChrystal delivered a review calling for an enhanced focus on counterinsurgency, faster training of Afghan forces, and new tactical objectives--but no specific requests of troops or money...
Read entire article at New Republic
With the Iraq war spinning out of control in mid-2005, retired Marine General James L. Jones spoke with his old friend Peter Pace, the incoming chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Jones, who is now Barack Obama's national security advisor, had been sounded out for the Joint Chiefs job but demurred. One reason: He felt that civilian leaders in Washington were warping the military planning process. "Military advice is being influenced on a political level," Jones warned Pace, according to Bob Woodward's book State of Denial. Jones's warning squared with other reports at the time that U.S. commanders in Iraq felt pressure to keep troop levels low. Faced with a growing Democratic onslaught, the Bush White House was all too determined to pretend that the war was under control.
Four years later, Jones visited U.S. military commanders in Afghanistan. As it happened, Jones was joined on his trip by Woodward, who reported in The Washington Post on July 1 that Jones had warned the commanders against requesting more manpower in the wake of President Obama's approval earlier this year of 21,000 more troops. According to Woodward, Jones cautioned that Obama would have a "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot"--or WTF (as in, "What the fuck?")--moment were he to get such a request anytime soon. Jones was even more explicit in an interview with the McClatchy news service. When Obama originally increased troop levels, Jones said, military leaders had agreed that "there would be a year from the time the decision was made before they would ever come back and ask for any more."
Although other officials quickly disavowed Jones's remarks, it was clear that Jones had committed much the same sin that drove his disgust toward the Bushies. "There is pressure being brought to bear on generals," says a congressional aide who closely tracks Afghanistan policy. And, with the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan reportedly gearing up to request tens of thousands more troops this fall, it was an early sign that the Obama administration could fall prey to some of the politically driven mistakes that helped turn the Iraq war into a fiasco. Indeed, that's why recent commentary warning that Afghanistan could be to Obama what Vietnam was to Lyndon B. Johnson--a foreign quagmire that smothers a Democratic president's ambitious social agenda--may miss the point. The real danger for Barack Obama is not that he will follow in the footsteps of LBJ. It is that he will repeat the errors of George W. Bush.
Until early 2007, Bush foolishly tried to limit America's presence in Iraq. His initial approach was defined by the experience of Army General Eric Shinseki, who was publicly rebuked by senior Bush officials after testifying that several hundred thousand men would be necessary to stabilize the country. (Bush ultimately invaded with about 130,000 troops.) In the months that followed the invasion, press leaks indicated that commanders who knew that their forces were overextended were reticent about asking Washington for more boots on the ground. Generals were pressured, usually by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, to find ways to bring home American forces as quickly as possible.
The administration also exaggerated progress in Iraq, both raising expectations and dashing its credibility. Standing up Iraqi security forces was presented as the path to an American exit well before those forces were anywhere near ready to shoulder the burden. And Bush allowed the Iraq war to become a self-justifying engagement, in which saving American "face" and denying Islamist insurgents a victory became a core rationale for the war effort. Although Bush ultimately reversed course on the most important of these factors when he finally ordered his audacious January 2007 troop surge, his slow recognition of these mistakes probably prolonged and worsened the war.
People involved in Afghanistan policy fret that a similar dynamic could be evolving in the Obama administration. The bluntest among them is Anthony Cordesman, a former aide to John McCain now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who advised the recent strategy review conducted by General Stanley McChrystal, the new Afghanistan commander installed by Obama earlier this year. "What frightens me most," Cordesman said at a late-August panel at the Brookings Institution, "is that there is very sharp pressure on General McChrystal and on Ambassador Eikenberry from the White House and the National Security Council not to ask for specific additions in resources when they come back in September or October."
Cordesman and others have evidence to back up their case. One data point is a mysterious meeting Defense Secretary Robert Gates held with McChrystal in Belgium last month. The trip was oddly secretive--unannounced beforehand and with no reporters in tow. But two sources with ties to the McChrystal team say that Gates specifically told the general, then midway through the 60-day policy review that he completed last week, not to include any troop requests as part of the review. Perhaps not coincidentally, the meeting--which also included Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen, CENTCOM chief David Petraeus, and Pentagon undersecretary for policy Michele Flournoy--came just a few days after The Washington Post reported that McChrystal was likely to ask for many more troops. Sure enough, last week, McChrystal delivered a review calling for an enhanced focus on counterinsurgency, faster training of Afghan forces, and new tactical objectives--but no specific requests of troops or money...