Kicking the Afghan Can

One of the stranger phenomenons of President Barack Obama's foreign-policy record is the extent to which he gets blamed for the things he does well -- and gets something of a pass for the places where he deserves the most criticism.

For example, perhaps the most prominent and widely expressed criticism of Obama by Republicans is that he apologizes for America -- even though he has never done any such thing. He is accused of throwing Israel under the bus -- though from any unbiased reading of the president's record on Israel he has done nothing of the sort. Even on Iran, an issue where the differences in his policy approach from Republicans are barely visible, he is regularly attacked by the GOP for insufficient rigor in seeking to prevent the mullahs in Tehran from getting a bomb.

Yet, on Afghanistan, where Obama's record is the weakest, he has operated with a surprising lack of political scrutiny. But with this weekend's massacre of 16 civilians by a U.S. staff sergeant, which comes on the heels of riots over the burning of Qurans by U.S. troops (and in the harsh klieg lights of a presidential campaign), it's possible that Obama's free ride on Afghanistan might be coming to an end.

Indeed, recent poll numbers suggest that Americans are growing sick of the war -- 60 percent now say the war was not worth the cost, while 54 percent say that it's time to bring the troops home now, even if the Afghan National Army is unprepared to take over security from the U.S. and NATO. In addition, political pressure from Congress and Republican presidential aspirants is growing. Over the weekend both former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Senator Rick Santorum raised the prospect of a quicker troop drawdown from Afghanistan.

Such criticism of the president's policy in Afghanistan is not only warranted -- it's long overdue. After all, since January 2009, Obama's policy on Afghanistan has been a mess. He initially ordered a deployment of 17,000 troops in February 2009 without any sort of comprehensive review of the military and political strategy for winning the war. When that strategic review inside the administration did take place in April 2009, it recommended no increase in troop levels -- a decision that was reversed 8 months later after intense pressure from the military. In December 2009, when Obama ordered a surge of 30,000 troops to Afghanistan, he did so with a fuzzy set of objectives and an approach that was based on a host of assumptions about Afghanistan and Pakistan that turned out to be quite faulty.

These included the belief that Pakistan could be a strategic partner that would work with the United States toward resolving the war in Afghanistan (they haven't and they won't); that the Hamid Karzai government could be effectively stood up as a legitimate national government (they haven't and they likely can't); that the United States was able to wage an effective population-centric counterinsurgency operation (it can't); and that the Afghan security forces could be an effective counter-insurgent force (jury is still out but it doesn't look good). Over the last two and half years each of these assumptions have been proven incorrect, but yet the president has taken very little political heat for so badly misjudging the political and military situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

While Obama deserves credit for adhering to the 18-month timeline for the commencement of drawing down surge troops from Afghanistan that he announced in December 2009, it doesn't mean the policy has been fixed. The administration has been largely asleep at the wheel on Afghanistan, particularly in continuing to allow the military approach to the conflict to take precedence over a coherent political strategy (a problem that has been evident since 2009). While the White House has in recent weeks signaled a greater inclination to look for a political resolution to the war in Afghanistan -- and the recent release of five Taliban detainees from Guantanamo Bay suggests that things are moving in the right direction -- it's a bit late to the game. And the tardiness in fully embracing and prioritizing a political strategy in Afghanistan risks imperiling the entire effort.

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BEINGTHERE

8:34 PM ET

March 13, 2012

Maybe ... at least the importance of the war would loom

Except look at Obama's possible replacements: unless Ron Paul won by a fluke, we would have a war boy as our President. Guess that would make the day for the old, white fraternity of McCain and friends.

GRANT

1:46 AM ET

March 14, 2012

This article might be a bit

This article might be a bit more clear, the line Foreign Policy used for it is just plain foolish: "Could Afghanistan cost Obama the election?"

About two years ago, for a paper, I looked into the number of times Iraq and Afghanistan were respectively mentioned in major newspapers*. I noticed that even as we were supposedly shifting our focus to the war in Afghanistan there was still equal coverage on both nations. Looking at everything from September 12, 2001 to the date of my paper the number of newspaper articles mentioning Iraq easily buried the number mentioning Afghanistan.

To put it simply, for nine to ten years (I don't remember the exact date of my study) Iraq was more important. Even when we were supposed to be looking at Afghanistan, Iraq was at least just as important. In other words the public doesn't care about Afghanistan. Afghanistan is not going to cost anyone the election.

*For the first part mentioned here, using Lexis Nexis I searched under 'Iraq' filtering out Afghanistan, I searched under 'Afghanistan' filtering out Iraq and I searched for articles with both 'Iraq' and 'Afghanistan' in them.

VIC LESPERANCE

9:07 AM ET

Revisionist History

I share many of the concerns expressed in the above article about the war in Afghanistan. I do take exception with some assertions expressed by Mr. Cohen however.

President Obama ran on a platform that among other things, prioritized wrapping up the misguided Iraq War and focusing on securing Afghanistan. The troop increase in February, 2009, may have been early in his term but it was essentially the fulfillment of a campaign promise that had been examined in depth by then Senator Obama and his staff(s). When the military requested a further troop increase before the initially approved deployment had occurred, the President ordered a thorough analytical process that was to include explication of a rationale for the employment of these new troops and also a firm target date for the hand off to the Afghans and withdrawal of American combat units. The President's guidance to the civilian and military officials involved in the process was to not repeat the mistakes made in the Johnson Administration regarding the handling of similar requests for additional manpower in Vietnam.

I recall intense pressure from partisans of the Bush administration who alleged that President Obama was not acting quickly enough. This was especially ironic since much of this drivel was emanating from characters such as former Vice-President Dick Cheney who had relegated prosecution of the Afghan War to the back burner. I was immensely gratified to see the careful consideration given to this momentous set of decisions and that he did not yield to those wreckless demands for hasty approval. The subsequent policy reflects a genuine incorporation of lessons learned from previous presidential decisions especially on the issue of not permitting an open ended allocation of military assets. The civilian and military leaders were not entirely mollified with this but eventually conceded and have executed their marching orders since. I believe they may have misjudged Mr. Obama and figured that eventually events would force the President to modify this choice. He has given no hint that we will continue the longest war in our history longer than current policy allows.

The proscution of this war has not been without it setbacks. The recent Koran burning and the massacre of innocent civilians are both serious events that merit thougtful and sensitive reactions. (It seems from reports on the ground that the Koran burnings probably had a deeper impact but the effects o thecivilian killings may not have manifested themselves yet.). Any fair assessment of the effectiveness of the Obama war policies needs to consider the state of affairs on January 20, 2009 and how closer we are to some sort of closure. One area that is especially disappointing is local corruption that is still pervasive at all levels. By any objective measure though, we should be able to proceed to honorable dimunition of our presence in a fashion that has to be respected in the region and the world even if it is not a perfect outcome.

Finally, I find it hard to believe that the war in particular, and foreign policy generally are going to influence the election in any significant way. The president has essentially outflanked the Republicans in this area and through a combination of events, eliminated a Republican advantage in this area that goes back to 1968. The electoral war will fought on a different plane with Republicans pressing national security and foreign affairs at their own peril.

MARTY MARTEL

2:39 PM ET

Poor US and NATO!

They thought they had an ally in Pakistan when they started this Afghan war in 2001. How little did they understand their duplicitous ally when Bush administration allowed Musharraf to airlift thousands of Taliban operatives under the garb that if Bush did not, Pakistan will explode in November 2001.

That mistake of allowing airlifting of Taliban operatives cornered by the advancing Northern Alliance in Kunduz in November, 2001 has led to this endless war.

At the height of the siege of the northern town of Kunduz, Afghanistan in November, 2001, US and Northern Alliance troops were ordered to stand down as Pakistani Air Force transporters flew in and airlifted an unconfirmed number of Pakistani armymen and intelligence operatives. But not all of them were Pakistanis; America knew that a large number of them were Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders. The full story of this was told to the American people by journalist Seymour Hersh in the January 28, 2002 edition of New Yorker magazine. The Taliban cadres were airlifted by Pakistan to Quetta and North Waziristan to live, recuperate and terrorize for another day as it is happening now.

With an ally like Pakistan, US-led Afghan mission was doomed from the very beginning.

PASHTUNWALLY

12:20 AM ET

March 15, 2012

tired

I think US citizens are just tired of it all, so while polls may show 54% support leaving, the remaining 46% don't vehemently care one way or another, hence no anti-Panetta bloom when he mentions we might leave early.

The Afghans have done so much themselves, Pakistani actions aside, to undermine CF efforts that I sense DoS and others are just treading water, voicing meaningless plattitudes, etc., until such time as the main effort disapates and they can go back to a normalized once a week chai with the locals optempo where no one will question their effectiveness.

Afterall, if you're posted in Ghana, Peru, or Bangladesh who really pays attention to what you're doing? No one. If you're in Italy or Spain, it's all a big party with lots of bureaucratic paperwork to do but by golly we're shutting it down at four for cocktail hour.

DoS and USAID just want this to go away...so no one will question whether or not what they do actually works or not. Unfortunately, the only time anyone pays attention to these guys is if there's a war on and other agencies start asking questions like "so what are you guys doing? Is that working? Gee...have you been to the village to talk to the locals about that? No...oh...you talked to a university professor here who's never been to the village either...I see..."

ELLSWORTH SPULICK

3:56 AM ET

April 12, 2012

Barack Obama's foreign-policy

I think that, One of the stranger phenomenons of President Barack Obama's foreign-policy record is the extent to which he gets blamed for the things he does well -- and gets something of a pass for the places where he deserves the most criticism.Australian Defence Minister Stephen Smith had a close shave when Taliban insurgents fired rockets at his military plane at the tarmac at Kandahar Airport.Smith and senior officers of the Australian Defence Forces were preparing to leave the Kandahar Airport

Foreign Policy Magazine

Inside National Security

President Obama's Afghanistan strategy might be a political liability in November -- and he has no one to blame but himself for a war he never bothered to think through.

BY MICHAEL A. COHEN | MARCH 13, 2012

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