As a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom, I was gratified to hear President Obama's tribute to the courage of America's service members, including the Navy SEALs with whom I served in 2003. Over the course of the conflict, American forces have adapted and performed admirably under extremely difficult conditions. As James Russell writes in the latest issue of The Journal of Strategic Studies, American units structured and trained for conventional military operations shifted successfully to wage successfully a very different type of war.

And yet, one could not help to see in the president's words and mannerisms, a man who was distracted, whose heart wasn't in it. In a speech nominally devoted to Iraq, he couldn't help but talk about the U.S. economy.

Obama's speech begged comparison to his predecessor -- indeed, his words invited such a comparison. And it is by comparison that he comes up short. Whereas Bush exhibited great courage in going against his own military to support the Iraqi surge and sell it to his own party and the American people, Obama has yet to put comparable effort into selling his own Afghan surge. The Oval Office speech was a missed opportunity to do just that.

In addition, in tone and substance, Obama's speech failed to prepare the American people for what may be to come in Iraq. Although last night Obama formally declared an end to combat operations, nearly 50,000 American soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines remain in Iraq, training and assisting the Iraqi armed forces. It is inevitable that in coming weeks and months these men and women will be attacked by insurgents who want nothing more than to cripple the Iraqi government and humiliate the United States, and is inevitable that more Americans will die or suffer wounds in Iraq. The president did nothing to explain this situation to the public.

Just as it was misleading for President Bush to speak in triumphant terms in May 2003, it was premature for President Obama to give the American people the impression that the Iraq War is over. It may be, to quote Churchill, "the end of the beginning," but we have hardly reached the end.

President Obama's Oval Office address last night reminded me of an exchange I had last fall with a senior White House staff member at a policy conference. It was in the midst of the prolonged Afghan strategy review, and a very full domestic agenda, especially the push for the health care bill, and I was trying to get a sense of the president's state of mind and leadership priorities. I asked this staff member "In your observation, does President Obama consider himself a 'wartime president'?" The staff member responded somewhat defensively by describing how much the president cares for the military and is committed to the troops' welfare. But it was telling, I thought, that this staffer's answer avoided the actual question.

To be clear, there is no doubt that this White House is fully aware that it leads a nation at war, and that Obama feels deeply the manifest responsibilities of being commander-in-chief. Yet as Peter Baker's excellent New York Times article showed, and as last night's speech only further demonstrated, this is also a White House ambivalent about the term "wartime presidency" because it is ambivalent about just how much of a defining priority the wars should be. Especially in the midst of ongoing economic travails at home and an ambitious domestic policy agenda.

In this context, the president's speech was a worthy-enough effort, with a few high points. But taken in the whole, it tried to do too much and thus accomplished too little. It tried to celebrate the end of the war in Iraq while promising an ongoing (though vaguely defined) U.S. commitment; it tried to turn the nation's focus to the Afghanistan crucible while reiterating next year's force drawdown; it tried to cast the conflict against al Qaeda as the most urgent national security threat while failing to explain the strategic context for why Afghanistan and Iraq matter in that conflict (let alone Yemen or Somalia or other emerging hotspots); it tried to argue that the economic situation at home is the highest overall priority while being a speech about national security commitments overseas.

This last point is another illustration of the potential downsides of too tightly connecting domestic economic strength with international security (as the Obama National Security Strategy does). At one level this is a truism, of course, and has a coherent internal logic -- a strong economy at home enables strength aboard. But in the messy world of policymaking and hard trade-offs, overemphasizing this connection can lead to prioritizing expensive domestic programs (some of questionable utility) at the expense of national security commitments. See, for example, this quote from the Baker article on the White House's past deliberations on Afghanistan:

One adviser at the time said Mr. Obama calculated that an open-ended commitment would undermine the rest of his agenda. "Our Afghan policy was focused as much as anything on domestic politics," the adviser said. "He would not risk losing the moderate to centrist Democrats in the middle of health insurance reform and he viewed that legislation as the make-or-break legislation for his administration."

As with the crammed-in domestic policy section at the end of last night's speech, in Mike Gerson's words, "the president indicated that events in Iraq and Afghanistan were a distraction from his real agenda."

Even as the main audience for last night's speech, the American public, might have come away somewhat confused over the White House's priorities, it also sent an uncertain message to other important audiences in the CENTCOM region. These include the fractious and stalemated Iraqi government facing an unsure security environment; an Iranian regime watching for signs of American vulnerability; other Arab states worried about the U.S. posture especially in light of Iran's nuclear ambitions; or Pakistan and India whose questions about America's longer-term commitment in Afghanistan leads them to their own hedging strategies.

This is not to say that the president's speech was a failure; it was not. As Peter Feaver points out below, President Obama provided some needed answers and notes of grace. But for the answers it provided, it also raised more questions.

How did Obama do in his Iraq speech on those Four Essential Items I was tracking? Better than I feared, but not as well as I hoped.

Gimmickry vs. Candor? He did not say "mission accomplished" but he did say mission completed and responsibility met (specifically: "The Americans who have served in Iraq completed every mission they were given" and "we have met our responsibility"). The emphasis is all on what has been done and not on what still needs to be done. If what remains to be done is light and easy, the speech is strong enough to sustain it. But the speech did not prepare Americans for any hard and dangerous  tasks to come in Iraq.

The gestures towards reality -- "Of course, violence will not end with our combat mission" -- felt like nothing more than gestures. And the breezy confidence -- "But ultimately, these terrorists will fail to achieve their goals. Iraqis are a proud people. They have rejected sectarian war, and they have no interest in endless destruction. They understand that, in the end, only Iraqis can resolve their differences and police their streets"  -- seemed disconnected from the real challenges still confronting the Iraqi people, and therefore the United States.

Defining the mission going forward? The way forward seemed dotted with hopes and aspirations -- a vague commitment to "support Iraq as it strengthens its government, resolves political disputes, resettles those displaced by war, and builds ties with the region and the world" -- rather than with hard-headed strategies for achieving realistic goals. He also doubled down on the promise that all U.S. troops will be out of Iraq by the end of the year, leaving no flexibility for responding to the expected Iraqi request for a post-2011 American presence.

Honesty about what worked and what hasn't? Without saying it directly, the entire speech was an acknowledgment that the surge had worked. In that sense, it was implicitly honest. But Obama avoided saying it, and indeed avoided most of the expected explicit discussion of his own record on Iraq. He reminded the audience that he had opposed the war initially, but left unmentioned that he had opposed the surge on which all that he had accomplished depended. More importantly, he did not discuss at all the failure of the "timetable as leverage" tactic -- his primary contribution to Iraq strategy and the centerpiece of his Afghanistan strategy.

He did mention President Bush in a fairly positive light and I am willing to believe that his handlers thought they offered a gracious gesture. Certainly his call to "turn the page" on Iraq debates had a statesmanlike ring to it, even if on the very next page he leveled a campaign-theme attack line about money spent in Iraq not being available to be spent at home. Yet on balance, I am willing to credit this as his most gracious Iraq speech ever.

Speaking to the toughest audiences, those who lost loved ones? His peroration was moving and well delivered. He improved on the radio address by spending more time talking about  military honor and less time talking about military compensation. But he also spent all of his time talking to and about the troops that had left Iraq rather than the troops that remained. I think they and their families would have appreciated a bit more explanation of why it is worth running the risks they must run, and bearing the burden they continue to carry.

Perhaps this will be the last speech he gives on Iraq in 18 months. If Iraq steadily improves, he may not need to say much more. If Iraqis consistently stand up, Americans can consistently stand down. If so, then this will be remembered as his best Iraq speech. But if the gains thus far in Iraq suffer serious setbacks and if the American military are obliged to do more than ferry equipment out of theater, this speech may be remembered as an ill-starred spiking of a ball that is very much still in play.

Defense cooperation agreements are a good thing, and the United States has many with friendly nations around the globe. They enable mutual undertakings such as disaster response and counternarcotics efforts, they define limits, and specify rights and obligations for signatories. Sometimes they attract controversy, as did the U.S.-Colombia Defense Cooperation Agreement (DCA) signed in October of 2009. But generally they won't if they are in step with each party's needs and adequately explained.

Unfortunately, when the U.S.-Colombia DCA was announced, South America's regional bully, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, was quick with a hysterical response. He deftly mischaracterized its counternarcotics theme as a threat to his government during a South American leaders' summit in order to distract attention from his outlandish multi-billion dollar arms purchases. These include long-range Sukhoi Su-30 fighter-bombers, Mi-35 combat helicopters, plans for advanced Su-35 fighters, submarines, and seaborne missile attack platforms.

Whereas Chávez signs all manner of troubling pacts with Russia and Iran without restraint, it's comforting to know that Colombia's Constitutional Court decided that the DCA required legislative approval. That's the difference separation of powers and rule of law make. The Court's decision deserves respect and newly inaugurated President Juan Manuel Santos did the right thing by setting the issue aside.

Read on

The president is commemorating "the end of the combat operations in Iraq." Except that U.S. military forces remaining in Iraq will continue to have combat responsibilities, both in support of Iraqi forces for internal security, and to protect Iraq from external threats, through at least the end of 2011. There is a serious disconnect between military missions and the statements coming out of the White House. However, this disconnect is not even the most egregious problem with administration's policy on Iraq. Far from being the "responsible drawdown" mantra the Obama administration keeps chanting, its transition to a completely civilian mission puts at risk the gains the military force has achieved thus far.

President Obama declared that "our commitment in Iraq is changing -- from a military effort led by our troops to a civilian effort led by our diplomats." To the State Department's credit, it is dramatically increasing their numbers in Iraq. Iraq has the largest U.S. embassy in the world, and projections are for further increases to nearly 7,000 personnel. But more than half that number will be providing security, and the vast majority of them will be contractors, empowered to use deadly force. Every inspector general and GAO report on operations has criticized oversight of contractors; this has the potential for catastrophe.

Read on

President Obama's planned "big speech" on Iraq this week poses real challenges for the president. He wants to tout the fact that the military met his  September deadline of reducing the number of troops below an arbitrary 50,000 threshold -- a milestone that many, including myself, doubted they would meet on schedule. But he needs to do so in a way that does not make some already thorny Iraq problems worse than they are.   

There are lots of things speechwriters and advisors wrestle with when confronted with a task like this. Here are four that I think are especially important.

The first is tempering a boasting frame/optic that wants to declare victory with a candor that still acknowledges the challenges ahead. Bush's advisors memorably failed to get the balance right when President Bush gave the address that became known as the "Mission Accomplished speech." The remarks were delivered in front of a banner declaring "Mission Accomplished" aboard an aircraft carrier that was returning home after, well, after accomplishing its mission. Everyone remembers the vivid image of former jet-pilot Bush landing aboard the carrier and striding confidently on the tarmac. No one remembers the actual content of the speech he gave.  

The speech itself was congratulatory to the military for what they had already achieved in Iraq, but pitched responsibly. The speech clearly stated that the Iraq project was not finished. Bush did not say "mission accomplished." Bush said, truthfully, that the phase of the war involving "major combat operations" -- what the military calls  Phase III operations -- was over and that a new but still challenging phase (Phase IV operations, post-conflict stabilization) remained. While he manifestly did not anticipate how poorly the Phase IV operations would go, he did acknowledge "We have difficult work to do in Iraq." If the president had given the speech in the Oval Office, it would barely register in the public consciousness today. What seared it into the public memory and turned it into a favored attack line was the gimmick of delivering it aboard the aircraft carrier -- and, of course, the image literally "framed" with the words "Mission Accomplished."

Obama's handlers will not be so foolish as to allow exactly the same unfortunate photographic image to frame his Iraq speech, but they have already allowed other gimmicks that come close to the same thing. They have declared an artificial end to the combat mission, relabeled the combat troops there as "non-combat" advisory units, and changed the name of the military mission. This is pure gimmickry without any real grounding in military reality, unlike Bush's announcement about the shift from Phase III to Phase IV. I suppose an ardent booster might try to claim that Obama is refining military science to create a new Phase V "post-post-conflict stability operations." Most experts see this as mere spin, and mere spin is a very dangerous foundation for mobilizing ongoing public support for a military mission.

Critics claimed Bush's speech declaring the end of major combat operations was tantamount to spiking the ball on the 10 yard line (or even further from the goal). Because of this, neither the American public, nor the military, nor the Bush administration were prepared for the tough and costly work that remained. Will President Obama prepare us and his own team for the tough and costly work that remains in Iraq?

Read on

There are strange goings-on in Pyongyang these days. First, former President Jimmy Carter arrived in the North Korean capital to secure the release of Aijilon Gomez, an American human rights activist who had been sentenced to seven years hard labor after wandering across the border from China. Then, within 12 hours of Carter’s arrival, North Korea leader Kim Jong Il suddenly shows up in China for his second visit in several months. All these moves are leading to speculation that the United States is about to slide back to the pattern of engagement and concessions that has followed every other confrontation with Pyongyang over the past two decades.

I think the odds are probably against such a replay of history. But then again, the temptation of “parking” the intractable North Korea problem in slow motion talks has proven irresistible to two previous administrations nervous about sustained confrontation with the North. The Loyal Opposition would be doing the Obama team a favor by scrutinizing its next steps for similar wobbliness.

Read on

For weeks now, the Obama administration has been leaking to reporters its intention to modify U.S. travel regulations to Cuba. Reportedly, the administration will announce the policy change during the current congressional recess to avoid political blowback (so much for the courage of their convictions.)

As a policy matter, the move simply returns U.S. travel policy to that which existed under the Clinton administration, fostering "people-to-people" contacts by liberalizing categories of citizens' groups that can legally travel to Cuba. While religious, cultural, and artistic groups will now find it easier to visit Cuba, the changes most assuredly do not open Cuba up to unregulated tourist travel, which is the current Holy Grail of the noisy anti-embargo lobby.

In short, the new policy won't move the needle much on U.S.-Cuba relations or in Cuba itself. It won't translate into an economic windfall the Castro regime desperately needs nor are visits to Cuba by the American Ballet Theater likely to embolden ordinary Cubans to pressure for internal change anytime soon.

The biggest problem with the announcement is the timing is all wrong. Not only are any policy changes that could be construed as lessening the isolation of the Castro brothers' barbaric and unrepentant regime counter-productive at this point, they muddy the real issues at hand.

Read on