In the wake of the president’s West Point speech announcing the administration’s new strategy for Afghanistan,  the White House must have been concerned that charges that lingering charges of warmongering (on the left) or dithering (on the right) were going to dominate the public debate.  Why would there be major weekend stories in the New York Times, Washington Post, and LA Times to set the record straight?  Coming from sources as wide-ranging as National Security Advisor Jim Jones to “more than a dozen senior administration and military officials who took part in the strategy review”, these newspapers’ broad consensus of the strategy sessions shows a president asking careful questions to redefine the mission in a way that protects the country while limiting open-ended commitment.

Last week, I was in the offices of a certain, nameless 24 hour cable news channel that’s nice enough to put my ugly mug on the air fairly often.   I overheard one of its regular pundits exclaim breathlessly, “I just don’t understand why Obama just doesn’t do what his commanders on the ground tell him.”  This weekend’s trio of articles paints the best picture I’ve seen of why not.

Here’s the short version of that answer from the NYT:

The decision represents a complicated evolution in Mr. Obama’s thinking. He began the process clearly skeptical of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal’s request for 40,000 more troops, but the more he learned about the consequences of failure, and the more he narrowed the mission, the more he gravitated toward a robust if temporary buildup, guided in particular by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates. …

The group went over the McChrystal assessment and drilled in on what the core goal should be. Some thought that General McChrystal interpreted the March strategy more ambitiously than it was intended to be.

And the longer version from the WaPo:

In June, McChrystal noted, he had arrived in Afghanistan and set about fulfilling his assignment. His lean face, hovering on the screen at the end of the table, was replaced by a mission statement on a slide: “Defeat the Taliban. Secure the Population.”

“Is that really what you think your mission is?” one of those in the Situation Room asked. …

“I wouldn’t say there was quite a ‘whoa’ moment,” a senior defense official said of the reaction around the table. “It was just sort of a recognition that, ‘Duh, that’s what, in effect, the commander understands he’s been told to do.’ Everybody said, ‘He’s right.’ ”

“It was clear that Stan took a very literal interpretation of the intent” of the NSC document, said Jones, who had signed the orders himself. “I’m not sure that in his position I wouldn’t have done the same thing, as a military commander.” But what McChrystal created in his assessment “was obviously something much bigger and more longer-lasting . . . than we had intended.”

Whatever the administration might have said in March, officials explained to McChrystal, it now wanted something less absolute: to reverse the Taliban’s momentum, deter it and try to persuade a significant number of its members to switch sides. “We certainly want them not to be able to overthrow the government,” Jones said.

On Oct. 9, after awaking to the news that he had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Obama listened to McChrystal’s presentation. The “mission” slide included the same words: “Defeat the Taliban.” But a red box had been added beside it saying that the mission was being redefined, Jones said. Another participant recalled that the word “degrade” had been proposed to replace “defeat.”

Already briefed on the previous day’s discussion, the president “looked at it and said: ‘To be fair, this is what we told the commander to do. Now, the question is, have we directed him to do more than what is realistic? Should there be a sharpening . . . a refinement?’ “ one participant recalled.

Said a senior White House adviser who took extensive notes of the meeting: “The big moment when the mission became a narrower one was when we realized we’re not going to kill every last member of the Taliban.”

Separately, a few other nuggets, like on troop numbers (NYT):

On Oct. 9, Mr. Obama and his team reviewed General McChrystal’s troop proposals for the first time. Some in the White House were surprised by the numbers, assuming there would be a middle ground between 10,000 and 40,000.

“Why wasn’t there a 25 number?” one senior administration official asked in an interview. He then answered his own question: “It would have been too tempting.”

And from the LA Times’ piece on the date of withdrawal:

Gates was also persuaded by Petraeus and others that announcing the date would help create an incentive for the Afghans to act, he said this week.

The proposed date also would make it such that the withdrawal of troops would begin just as the campaign for the 2012 presidential election was heating up.

Still, it was crucial to Gates and other military officials that Obama not announce a specific drawdown plan. Doing so could embolden militants, Defense officials said. Gates and others wanted to make sure that the pace of the drawdown would be based on the security situation — not a set timetable.

“Ultimately,” said a senior Defense official, Gates “wanted conditionality, and got it.”

All three articles are a must-read to anyone who wants to understand the complexity of the White House’s decision.  In sum, it seems that the review sessions narrowed the goal, and resourced it as robustly and quickly as possible.  I understand that the administration needed to fix a date for beginning withdrawal as a political concession to the progressive base, and I still remain uncomfortable with that notion even though these articles do a good job clarifying the withdrawal’s pace is subject to the security situation.

My think tank - the PPI - has just launched a new website, The Progressive Fix.  Most of my writing will be available there, so I encourage you to click over and check it out.

I’ll continue to post things here (I think), but move on over there for more regular and refined (ie, edited) commentary.

Jim

Folks, a little admission from yours truly:  I’ve been swamped doing things that aren’t always related to writing.  The PPI is a different animal these days, and I find myself taking over much more of the managing, hiring, and planning than I’m normally used to.  So, my apologies if you’ve been nice enough to keep reading my site even while I’m the first to admit that the postings around here have lately been fewer and farther between.

That said, there are big changes afoot here, so please bear with us because we’ll be rolling out cool stuff soon.

That said, tide yourselves over with this:

Our civilian and military leaders on the ground in Afghanistan and at CENTCOM offer a new plan to reorient our strategic position and pave the way for increased troop and resource commitments.  Reactions seem to be mixed, with most converging on the plan’s ambitiousness while questioning its feasability.  Of course, that’s where the increased resources come in…

Anthony Cordesman’s words matter.  He’s at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and long been a pointed observer of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan;  he just spent two months in the latter as part of a special review team for Gen. Stanley McChrystal.  Here’s what he had to say about it:

The United States cannot win the war in Afghanistan in the next three months — any form of even limited victory will take years of further effort. It can, however, easily lose the war. …

Between 2002 and 2008 the United States never provided the forces, money or leadership necessary to win, effectively wasting more than half a decade. Our country left a power vacuum in most of Afghanistan that the Taliban and other jihadist insurgents could exploit and occupy, and Washington did not respond when the U.S. Embassy team in Kabul requested more resources.

The appointments this summer of Karl Eikenberry as ambassador to Afghanistan and McChrystal as commander of U.S. and allied forces have created a team that can reverse this situation. In fact, given the rising unpopularity of the war and Taliban successes, they are our last hope of victory. …

Unfortunately, strong elements in the White House, State Department and other agencies seem determined to ignore these realities. They are pressuring the president to direct Eikenberry and McChrystal to come to Washington to present a broad set of strategic concepts rather than specific requests for troops, more civilians, money and an integrated civil-military plan for action. They are pushing to prevent a fully integrated civil-military effort, and to avoid giving Eikenberry and McChrystal all the authority they need to try to force more unity of effort from allied forces and the U.N.-led aid effort.

If these elements succeed, President Obama will be as much a failed wartime president as George W. Bush. He may succeed in lowering the political, military and financial profile of the war for up to a year, but in the process he will squander our last hope of winning.

Wow - that’s quite a strong charge for Cordesman to make, and he should be pressed to present specifics.  What’s their motivation, the high cost (financially and politically)?  We’ll see this unfold over the next few months, as McChrystal (at least, if not Eikenberry) is scheduled to return home.  Assuming he’s scheduled to appear on the Hill, members would be wise to press him on specifics - because if we can’t be honest about what it will really take now, we have no business trying in the first place.

Here’s another worthwhile endeavor as we start turn towards the next election cycle (already?):

The Veterans Campaign, a non-profit organization that trains military veterans interested in running for public office.  If I’m not mistaken, it was started by some enterprising Princeton students, who realized the inherent credibility that military vets bring to the campaign trail.  It’s true - veterans are considered trustworthy interlocutors, and have a leg up when it comes to running for office.

To that end, I’ve heard rumors that in 2006, Rahm Emmanuel sent a letter to every returning Iraq vet to ask if they’d consider running for Congress.  And though I have no evidence that Rahm’s initative was the driving force behind the campaigns of folks like Patrick Murphy, Joe Sestak, and John Powers, it’s at least possible.

The trick is to teach vets the ups and downs of campaigning and politics.  That’s what The Veterns Campaign is there for.  It seems like a worthy cause.  They’re having a training seminar on September 12-13 if you’re interested.

Curses.  Jury duty today…  They have WiFi in the juror’s lounge, but who knows when I’ll be called…

Alright, well not like Steven was anyway…  But I’m back, and in the midst of moving offices with spotty internets connection in the new digs for the first few days.

Russia was fascinating on several levels, so I hope to get some thoughts up on that soon…