Two Small Claps for Obama’s Afghanistan Reversal

 

Yesterday, Barack Obama announced a major shift in his seemingly steadfast Afghanistan strategy, which had involved the promise of a massive United States drawdown by the end of 2016. The Wall Street Journal explains:

Under pressure at home and abroad, Mr. Obama said that—following a strategy review—the U.S. will maintain the current American force of 9,800 troops in Afghanistan through most of next year and leave a force of 5,500 U.S. troops in the country in 2017, after he leaves office.

The announcement will mark a dramatic shift in strategy by scrapping Mr. Obama’s previous plan, in place since last year, to steadily withdraw the 9,800 U.S. troops through 2016 and to leave only about 1,000 at the U.S. embassy by the time he leaves office in January 2017.

Time and again, Obama has with unyielding determination saw fit to telegraph US foreign policy, preemptively declare victory, and set deadlines for our departures. But reality often cudgels the arrogant confidence of politicians. This is especially obvious now that we see an emboldened Russian, Iran, and ISIS seeking fill the void left by the United States in the Middle East.

After the Taliban took the northern Afghan city Kunduz, leading to a disastrous bombing of a Doctors Without Borders hospital bombing, the president had few choices but to yield to reality. This turnabout is unquestionably a huge embarrassment and a humbling experience for the President – to the extent his self-aggrandizing personality makes room for such traits.

This did not go unnoticed in the social media sphere, where conservatives pounced on Obama’s haughty mocking of Mitt Romney in the 2012 debates. Even journalists took to Twitter criticizing the president — if ever-so-gently. Bloomberg political analyst Josh Rogin tweeted: “It’s not Obama’s fault he couldn’t end the war in Afghanistan. But he shouldn’t have promised to do it in the first place.” (As an aside, what if there were a group of people tasked with questioning politicians’ promises, particularly in complex arenas like foreign policy — or health care, for that matter? Is it so much to ask the media energetically to confront these promises when they are made? Of course not, because substantive policy debates are given little space compared to glib rhetorical click-magnets like “The 80’s called.”)

I join all opportunities to castigate Obama when his many velleities meet the rigid wall of reality. His smallness when lecturing or maligning opponents is inversely proportionate to his Leviathan vision of the State. But conservatives should applaud this decision.

We face astonishingly serious dangers in the Middle East and Central Asia. We may derive pleasure from showering in liberal tears, but this decision at least suggests that Obama has some ability to reverse course and avoid further catastrophe. His pre-emptive withdrawal from Iraq allowed ISIS to expand, causing immeasurable human suffering and destruction of historical treasure. Any goodwill we enjoyed from a liberated Iraq has been squandered.

In explaining his Afghanistan decision, Obama said,

I know many of you have grown weary of this conflict. As you are all well aware, I do not support the idea of endless war. I have repeatedly argued against marching into open-ended military conflicts that do not support our core security interests. I’m firmly convinced that we should make this extra effort.

Those who believe American interests supersede any individual president’s legacy or goals should take comfort that Obama, who was maniacally bent on “ending the war in Iraq” despite conditions on the ground, is leaving a substantial troop presence in Afghanistan. If even an inflexible Obama can see, however impassively, the errors of his previous foreign policy decisions, it may be a small step toward avoiding future facile promises. We should be moderately thankful he didn’t fulfill yet another foolish campaign promise.

So let’s hear it for the Barack. Or if you’re not quite that willing to break into Footloose-type dance, two small claps.

Published in Foreign Policy, General
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  1. Richard Fulmer Inactive
    Richard Fulmer
    @RichardFulmer

    Sorry, no applause.  Obama is leaving troops in harm’s way with engagement rules that put their lives and their missions at great risk.  If he has no intention of winning, he should pull out.  If he does intend to win, he should get out of the way.

    • #1
  2. Ball Diamond Ball Member
    Ball Diamond Ball
    @BallDiamondBall

    JAM40: We face astonishingly serious dangers in the Middle East and, however much pleasure we derive from showering in liberal tears, this decision illustrates at least a small capableness to reverse course and avoid further catastrophe.

    Wrong wrong wrong.  Leaving a rump force as a target is not an accomplishment except for the enemy.  It’s cowardice or worse that led him to abandon the Middle East, and it’s cowardice that leads him to abandon his own effort.  This is about having no good answers when a hospital bombing means the question finally gets asked — what are we doing over there?  We obviously are NOT committed to securing or stabilizing anything or we would still be fighting this war, not abandoning it.  We just as obviously are not getting the heck out of there, or we would already be gone.

    “Go long, go strong, or go home.”  We gave up on long, and in doing so, prevented strong.  Home is all that’s left, and now we’re not doing that either.  The Taliban (Northern Afghanistan) and ISIS (now all over Southern Afghanistan) aren’t going to take this sitting down, and we aren’t there in strength enough to defend.

    I am not saying that there was never any hope.  There was hope, and I was proud to be part of it.  But that’s all gone, and I would rather the Obama administration find its way to defeat without getting more Americans killed for nothing.

    For.  Nothing.

    • #2
  3. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    It would be interesting to know how much of what he is doing is because he doesn’t want to end his presidency with helicopters extracting diplomatic staff from the roof of the Kabul embassy in the waning days of his misrule, or if by (re)involving us in Afghanistan, he is ducking the ability to do much of anything at all about Iraq/Syria.

    Either way, JAM40, I doubt if it involves shame on Obama’s part.  A more shameless man never lived.

    BDB is right.  If the forces we leave there aren’t intended to win there, they shouldn’t be there.

    • #3
  4. Yeah...ok. Inactive
    Yeah...ok.
    @Yeahok

    Obama just told them that if they liked their hospitals, they could keep their hospitals.

    • #4
  5. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    Possibly because nature abhors a vacuum.  From Eurasianet:

    As Russia, China and Central Asian countries plan for post-2014 Afghanistan, they are floating plans to create “mini buffer states” in northern Afghanistan in order to stanch the potential flow of Islamism and violence into the post-Soviet space.

    Let’s say there’s a Russian/Uzbek supported mini buffer state along Afghanistan’s border with Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan – the part with a high proportion of ethnic Uzbeks and Tajiks – and Uzbekistan first recognises it as independent, and then accedes to its request to merge with Uzbekistan (which raises the national proportion of ethnic Uzbeks) and gives its population Uzbek citizenship.

    What then for the Govt in Kabul?

    • #5
  6. Ball Diamond Ball Member
    Ball Diamond Ball
    @BallDiamondBall

    Zafar:Possibly because nature abhors a vacuum. From Eurasianet:

    Let’s say there’s a Russian/Uzbek supported mini buffer state along Afghanistan’s border with Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan – the part with a high proportion of ethnic Uzbeks and Tajiks – and Uzbekistan first recognises it as independent, and then accedes to its request to merge with Uzbekistan (which raises the national proportion of ethnic Uzbeks) and gives its population Uzbek citizenship.

    What then for the Govt in Kabul?

    Don’t know.  We quit that game.

    • #6
  7. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    Ball Diamond Ball:

    What then for the Govt in Kabul?

    Don’t know. We quit that game.

    10,000 troops staying on tells me you dealt yourself back in.  But to what end?

    The NYT has this article on Russia’s use of ‘frozen zones’:

    Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia’s international military operations have focused almost exclusively on its neighbors, former Soviet republics. One pattern is clear: interventions that inflame conflict and create permanently tense and unstable “frozen zones,” allowing Russia to exert influence and confound its opponents and, often, its rivals in the West. The Kremlin has said that it is protecting its own interests and those of ethnic Russians in those areas.

    I get their point. They cite

    • Transdniestria (which freezes Moldova)
    • Crimea, Eastern Ukraine (Ukraine)
    • Abhkhazia, South Ossetia (Georgia
    • Nagorno Karabakh (Armenia, Azerbaijan)

    .

    It’s undeniable that a fractured, unstable Afghanistan similarly freezes Pakistan – and has the potential to tie down the Central Asian States to the North (already happening for some places) and even Iran.  Is that what this could be about?

    • #7
  8. Ball Diamond Ball Member
    Ball Diamond Ball
    @BallDiamondBall

    10,000 is hardly enough to secure an airport the way the US does it.  That is a pittance, as evidence by the fact that it is what we have drawn down to after years of drawing down.  We have shredded more material and staged everything in departure order.

    Of course the military is going to say Yes, We Can!  But they shouldn’t, because without a real goal, and without resourcing for a goal, the question is not answerable.  This is a sorry pass when even Powell’s “Pottery Barn” rule would be a better mission statement than whatever our supposed justification for prolonging this agony is.

    So no, we’re not “dealt back in”.  We’re just standing around with our chips on the table.

    • #8
  9. Ball Diamond Ball Member
    Ball Diamond Ball
    @BallDiamondBall

    I guess China balked at accepting the place if we were just going to let the Taliban kick holes in the wall.  Unhappy customers walk and then nobody gets chicken for dinner.

    • #9
  10. Claire Berlinski, Ed. Member
    Claire Berlinski, Ed.
    @Claire

    Ball Diamond Ball: Wrong wrong wrong.  Leaving a rump force as a target is not an accomplishment except for the enemy.

    Sadly, I have to agree. The other name for a rump force is “hostages.” This isn’t Grenada, it’s Afghanistan. The idea of securing it with 10,000 troops is pure fantasy — it’s precisely the kind of “mumbo-jumbo” that Obama has suggested proposals for military intervention in Syria to be, except that some of those proposals involved a more realistic matching of resources and goals.

    without a real goal, and without resourcing for a goal, the question is not answerable.

    I agree. And here we have no real goal, save for “telegraphing resolution.” That’s a worthy goal, but it can be done in a place where the troops might actually achieve something besides dying to demonstrate our resolve.

    • #10
  11. Claire Berlinski, Ed. Member
    Claire Berlinski, Ed.
    @Claire

    Ball Diamond Ball:I guess China balked at accepting the place if we were just going to let the Taliban kick holes in the wall. Unhappy customers walk and then nobody gets chicken for dinner.

    They haven’t much choice but to take it on.

    • #11
  12. Ball Diamond Ball Member
    Ball Diamond Ball
    @BallDiamondBall

    Looking at a graph of troop levels in Afghanistan, it looks like a map of Virginia.  Starts small in the west, with a great big bulge much later on, and falls all to Hell when you try to finish the drawing.

    • #12
  13. Claire Berlinski, Ed. Member
    Claire Berlinski, Ed.
    @Claire

    Ball Diamond Ball: There was hope, and I was proud to be part of it.

    At some point, I’d like to read a post on the Member Feed — one as cool and dispassionate as you’re capable of writing — explaining why you ever thought there was hope in Afghanistan, what you think it would have taken to win that war in a meaningful sense, and exactly how it could have been done. I’m in the odd position of having believed the war in Iraq to be both necessary and winnable, but having believed from the outset that Afghanistan was an insanity — not based on any deep knowledge of Afghanistan, but as a basic geopolitical principle on the order of, “Don’t invade Russia in the wintertime.”

    I’d like to hear why you thought otherwise.

    • #13
  14. Larry3435 Inactive
    Larry3435
    @Larry3435

    Whether this move is right or wrong, it is significant because it is the first time I can recall that President Always-The-Smartest-Guy-In-Any-Room has actually listened to advice from his military advisers (who don’t want to leave), and from our “allies” (or whatever we call former allies who no longer trust us).  I would like to think that this is some kind of epiphany, akin to Jimmy Carter’s epiphany about the Soviet Union (which also grew out of Afghanistan), but I can’t convince myself of that.  More likely, Obama just decided that it would be too inconvenient to adopt his usual approach of just firing everyone who disagreed with him, and made a minor concession in order to get his “advisers” off his back.

    • #14
  15. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    Agreed. No applause from me, or, I suspect, the troops left behind and their families. It’s the worst possible decision and therefore the one Obama could have been predicted to make. In fact, many of us were predicting it as soon as he took office what with his “end the wars” rhetoric — he’s going to get soldiers killed in the process of surrender.

    The man’s “leadership” is as arbitrary as any banana republic tinpot dictator, but for one thing. You can count on him to do whatever strokes his precious ego and “preserves his legacy,” such as it is. Complete disaster. I’m ashamed and embarrassed for my country.

    • #15
  16. Ball Diamond Ball Member
    Ball Diamond Ball
    @BallDiamondBall

    All we had to do in Afghanistan was commit to stay.  Nevermind strategies for clear-hold-build and the rest of that.  We just needed the good guys to believe that we weren’t going to haul ass, and for the bad guys to believe the exact same thing.

    As long as we weren’t *worse than the Taliban*, victory in Afghanistan looked like this:

    Twenty years down the road, a generation of Afghans make decisions and argue over tea with a decent fraction of them saying “I remember the Americans, and they were good.”

    That will not happen now.

    • #16
  17. MarciN Member
    MarciN
    @MarciN

    Ball Diamond Ball:All we had to do in Afghanistan was commit to stay. Nevermind strategies for clear-hold-build and the rest of that. We just needed the good guys to believe that we weren’t going to haul ass, and for the bad guys to believe the exact same thing.

    As long as we weren’t *worse than the Taliban*, victory in Afghanistan looked like this:

    Twenty years down the road, a generation of Afghans make decisions and argue over tea with a decent fraction of them saying “I remember the Americans, and they were good.”

    That will not happen now.

    Exactly so. Well said. Yup.

    The fact (or tragedy) is that it was a far less complicated situation than Iraq.

    Walking away from Afghanistan is the stupidest move we’ve ever made.

    What people overlook is that our enemies are looking at the vastness of Afghanistan the same way we are. It looks impossible to them. Thus, a measure of safety for Afghanistan.

    No one really wants it. Everyone needs to go through it for one reason or another.

    We could have given Afghanistan a very good enduring self-government and helped them get rid of the Taliban and Islamofascists from Pakistan.

    It was absolutely doable.

    How bizarre life is: the very thing that scared people away from trying was the very thing that would have made the effort succeed.

    • #17
  18. Claire Berlinski, Ed. Member
    Claire Berlinski, Ed.
    @Claire

    MarciN: How bizarre life is: the very thing that scared people away from trying was the very thing that would have made the effort succeed.

    Which was what, exactly? The remoteness of the place and the difficulty it poses to invaders?

    • #18
  19. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    I think I linked this once before, but Richard Fernandez has written an excellent article on the material consequences of reversing our previously announced* pullout.

    A detail from the article: since 2011, we’ve spent 30 billion dollars preparing to not be there anymore.  That’s all gone, plus reestablishing our logistics train is going to cost more on top of that.

    —–
    *The level of stupidity of announcing a pullout when the undefeated enemy is still on the loose makes me woozy.

    • #19
  20. MarciN Member
    MarciN
    @MarciN

    Claire Berlinski, Ed.:

    MarciN: How bizarre life is: the very thing that scared people away from trying was the very thing that would have made the effort succeed.

    Which was what, exactly? The remoteness of the place and the difficulty it poses to invaders?

    Yes. Exactly. The Afghanistan mystique. :)

    It is a terrible tragedy. The American military was very close to succeeding in getting Afghanistan on its feet. In a truly lasting way. And how fantastic it would have been to have had a friend in that location.

    Sigh.

    • #20
  21. MarciN Member
    MarciN
    @MarciN

    Percival:I think I linked this once before, but Richard Fernandez has written an excellent article on the material consequences of reversing our previously announced* pullout.

    A detail from the article: since 2011, we’ve spent 30 billion dollars preparing to not be there anymore. That’s all gone, plus reestablishing our logistics train is going to cost more on top of that.

    —– *The level of stupidity of announcing a pullout when the undefeated enemy is still on the loose makes me woozy.

    Me too.

    I think the only person in America who truly understood Afghanistan was James Michener. Possibly Robert Kaplan as well.

    The price of ignorance is steep.

    • #21
  22. MarciN Member
    MarciN
    @MarciN

    I’m going to try to say something here that I’ve been trying to say for years to no avail.

    I read the most interesting take on Jimmy Carter-the Russians-Afghanistan-Iran-Iraq from none other than George McGovern. It was a story listed in the Atlantic Monthly “Flashbacks” online feature years ago. (I used to spend many hours prowling around old issues of the Atlantic Monthly via the Flashback feature.)

    The article opened my eyes to what has happened in the Middle East and Afghanistan in the last thirty years.

    Carter so completely messed up the world that the size of the mess he made is beyond anyone’s comprehension except his rival, McGovern.

    We have misunderstood Afghanistan, the Russians, Iran, . . .

    Unbelievable story.

    James Michener often talks about the “mistakes” in history.

    We are living through one.

    • #22
  23. Instugator Thatcher
    Instugator
    @Instugator

    Absolutely no applause, as BDB said.

    Remember when we were talking about a ‘surge’ in 2009? The Low risk option (risk being defined as a risk of mission failure) was 80,000 troops. The planners believed that with that many troops they could implement a robust counterinsurgency strategy and move the Taliban away from winter/rest summer/attack.

    The Medium risk was 40,000 troops. The High risk strategy was 30,000.

    P. Obama gave him 20,000.

    Now he wants to leave a juicy, tempting target.

    • #23
  24. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    Percival: A detail from the article: since 2011, we’ve spent 30 billion dollars preparing to not be there anymore.  That’s all gone, plus reestablishing our logistics train is going to cost more on top of that.

    Pheh. T’aint nothin’. We’ve gone something like 9 trillion deeper in debt and what have we got to show for it? Is there a building or a bridge we can point to somewhere? A health plan or a doctor we kept? Something??!

    • #24
  25. Ball Diamond Ball Member
    Ball Diamond Ball
    @BallDiamondBall

    Western Chauvinist:

    Percival: A detail from the article: since 2011, we’ve spent 30 billion dollars preparing to not be there anymore. That’s all gone, plus reestablishing our logistics train is going to cost more on top of that.

    Pheh. T’aint nothin’. We’ve gone something like 9 trillion deeper in debt and what have we got to show for it? Is there a building or a bridge we can point to somewhere? A health plan or a doctor we kept? Something??!

    The hard part with the military is actually spending the money.  Insert joke here, but in order to actually spend 30 Big, that has to translate into movement of stuff somewhere.  That’s difficult even in an environment where it’s a toss-up between spending $80,000 to retrograde $5,000 worth of furniture or just replacing it when you get there because the procurement process is fraught.

    • #25
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