Obama’s surge

He’s back! President Obama’s speech on Afghanistan last night could well mark the moment that he got his presidency back, and smooth his path towards a second term.

For weeks he has been dogged by a comment from an aide, reported in the New Yorker, that he was “leading from behind.” With the administration’s slow response to the Arab spring, and by stepping back from a lead role in the Libya bombings, it looked like caution was the hallmark of the Obama “doctrine”.

But last night Obama demonstrated a boldness that has been lacking in his foreign policy choices. He revisited his 2009 speech at West Point, when he first announced the Afghanistan “surge”, and reminded us that above all he is a pragmatist: “We must be as pragmatic as we are passionate; as strategic as we are resolute.”

So saying, he put the military in their place by deciding on a swifter withdrawal of the 30,000 “surge” troops than his generals had recommended.  The Afghanistan commander, General David Petraeus, was overruled. But he will still have 70,000 American troops in place once the additional soldiers dispatched last year have returned home.

This is not about winning a war, but winning an election. By announcing the surge forces’ retreat before next summer’s fighting season, Obama will please those in his party who had been urging an early pull-out. He will have public opinion behind him, which will be welcome after the killing of Osama bin Laden only provided a temporary bounce in his approval ratings.

The thrust of his argument was this: “it is time to focus on nation building at home.” Obama knows that the economy holds the key to a second term. After spending $1 trillion on a foreign war since 9/11, it is time to use those dollars to help the American taxpayer.

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• mithras1

  Your point (1) is almost terminally confused about the run-ups to and the reasoning behind the invasion of Afghanistan (2001) and the invasion of Iraq (2003).

  Your point (3) is a more than tacit admission that there was a substantial difference behind the invasion of Iraq and the invasion of Afghanistan.

  However, if 250,000 U.S. and NATO troops and ‘contractors’ (U.S.-paid mercenaries) have been unable to pacify or control the Taliban in Afghanistan, it is highly unlikely that a much smaller force will be more successful.

  Thinking that non-Taliban Afghans will want to resist the Taliban and act like the recently departed ‘occupiers’ is, to date, wishful thinking. No army or security force in the world takes ten years to train.

   

• Jake_K

  Do keep up.  My point (1) is only about Iraq, not Afghanistan.  But if you can, do please tell me what I said in (1) that is wrong.  Remember, (1) is about IRAQ.

  “(3) (but I think you must mean (2)) is a more than tacit admission that there was a substantial difference behind the invasion of Iraq and the invasion of Afghanistan.” 
  Erm, duh…  It is a clearly explicit statement to that effect.  FAOD, (3) is about Afghanistan, NOT Iraq.

  “However, if 250,000 U.S. and NATO troops and ‘contractors’ (U.S.-paid mercenaries) have been unable to pacify or control the Taliban in Afghanistan, it is highly unlikely that a much smaller force will be more successful.” 
  It is even more unlikely that no force at all will be successful, no?  What I said was this is a chance, so let’s give it a proper go (though not at all indefinitely).

  “Thinking that non-Taliban Afghans will want to resist the Taliban …”  So I guess you missed the fact that the Northern Alliance have fought the pre- and current Taliban since the Russians left??

  Thanks for coming out to play but seriously, don’t have a WHOLE bottle of whiskey before you start typing – leads to utter gibberish.

• mithras1

  1. The article is about “Obama’s surge” based on his plans for troop withdrawal in Afghanistan — not Iraq. You, for reasons only clear to your muddled powers of reasoning, started your response with irrelevant blather about Iraq.

  2. If the Northern Alliance had been in any way effective, there would have been no reason for the invasion in 2001, no reason for the presence of U.S./NATO troops since 2001.

  BTW, most of the Northern Alliance (UIF) has been absorbed into the new ‘Military of Afghanistan’. And those that weren’t have been (mostly) disarmed.

  If you are going to post incoherent nonsense, at least try to make it current incoherent nonsense.

• mithras1

  The latest Pew Research poll (released two days ago) shows that “the percentage of Americans who favor removing the troops as soon as possible has reached an all-time high.”

  “For the first time, a majority (56%) says that U.S. troops should be brought home as soon as possible, while 39% favor keeping troops in Afghanistan until the situation has stabilized.”

  “The proportion favoring a quick withdrawal of U.S. forces has increased
  by eight points since last month (from 48%), immediately after the
  killing of Osama bin Laden. A year ago, just 40% favored removing the
  troops as soon as possible, while 53% favored keeping them in
  Afghanistan until the situation stabilized.”

  Once again, President Obama is behind the curve of public opinion. He wanted complete withdrawal before the American public arrived at that point. Now they have arrived at that point,  Obama is dithering and proposing a slow, purposeless withdrawal.

  No wonder he is such a disappointment to the majority of Americans.

• Nick1955

  People pay
  for any war, but profits gets the oligarchs. War is business. And the means of
  robbing its own people.
   

• chrisforse

  Ostensibly Obama’s withdrawals are because the situation in Afghanistan has stabilised. The reality is, of course, that the US and allies cannot hope to create a sustainable and stable government in Afghanistan while it is headed by the likes of Karzai, a weak and corrupt leader whose authority barely extends beyond Kabul. This is Vietnam all over again (or USSR in Afghanistan): propping up an unsustainable regime with the blood of young men and women, while negotiating from weakness against an enemy that knows that we have no stomach for the fight. I am not opposed to the withdrawal; I just wish governments could be honest and admit that this is no longer a war worth the blood of any more young soldiers. We did our best, our motives were honorable (unlike in Iraq) and we may have split the Taliban from al Qaeda (though the latter is a footloose network who can operate in any failed state). Let us be content with this limited achievement and depart. The only way the US could ‘win’ is to devote massive resources, for as many decades as is necessary, and we all know this is not within the realm of possibility.

• chrisforse

  There is a lot in what you say. Obama has committed himself to a non-partisan style of government; he speaks softly and carries no big stick. In many ways this is admirable given the poisonous, dysfunctional political atmosphere in the USA. Alas I feel history may say that he could never achieve a reconciliation, and the dreadful furore over what was a moderate health care bill should have convinced him of this. I feel he needs to be more like Truman, ” give ‘em hell’ and govern with conviction and s*d the consequences. That is why I believe he should come clean with the American people about the limits of what can be achieved in Afghanistan, even if it means coming to blows with the military (who should be supporting their C-in C in public). Truman sacked McArthur, and Obama sacked McCrystal. He can do it.

• http://www.facebook.com/people/Alan-MacDonald/1659822186 Alan MacDonald

  Toward the end of his speech tonight, Obama obviously felt the need to
  pathetically claim, “We stand not for empire” — which is clearly an
  admission that he feels a need to emphasize and, without the slightest
  proof, reinforce this ridiculous claim that the US is not acting as a
  global Empire.

  As Shakespeare famously wrote of the human nature of the guilty “(S)he protesteth too much”.

  So
  tonight, the ever smooth Obama, seems clearly to be protesting too much
  about an issue that a fast increasing number of Americans beyond
  Chomsky, Bacevich, Berman, Parenti, Kolko, Chalmers Johnson, Korten,
  Hedges, Harvey, Hardt, Wolin, Zinn, et al have known for years. That
  our former country is now the seminal part of a disguised global
  corporate/financial/militarist Empire, which hides behind the facade of
  its bought and paid for Two-Party “Vichy” sham of democratic government.

  Which
  means that today even the faux-Emperor himself seems to know that he
  has no clothes on, and that the global Empire that he fronts for is
  today becoming very naked to very many people here and abroad.

  So,
  tonight’s speech by faux-Emperor/president, Obama, was very good news
  for all of us who know that our former and now captive country “stands
  precisely for Empire” — although “we” certainly do not!

  Alan MacDonald

  Sanford, Maine

  Liberty & democracy

  over

  violent

  empire

  New America People’s Party 2012