Once?!

Mon, 09/28/2009 - 4:54pm

By Christian Brose

Apropos of Ross Douthat's fine column today about President Obama's reluctance thus far but requirement in future to become a "war president" on Afghanistan, I found this bit of last night's 60 Minutes profile of Gen. McChrystal to be -- how do you say? -- unbelievable:

Q: How often do you talk to the president?

McChrystal: I've talked to the president once since I've been here, on a [video teleconference].

Once?! We're talking, by my rough math, more than 100 days that McChrystal has been the president's hand-picked commander in Afghanistan, and he's spoken with him once. I'm not sure what the bigger question is right now: Whether the president will stick with his counterinsurgency strategy from March and resource it up to McChrystal's recommended levels -- or whether he will take ownership of any decision he ultimately makes and get fully behind it.

I am all for making absolutely sure that any Afghanistan strategy is right before making any resourcing decisions, and for scrubbing it hard in light of recent events. But all of that aside, we are still at war. Is it too much to ask the president to devote as much of his personal time and public capital on Afghanistan as he is on getting his hometown the 2016 Olympics?

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This is Rich

by Zathras on Mon, 09/28/2009 - 9:12pm

God. The Afghanistan fix we are in was produced by the last President's inattention and general fumbling incompetence as Commander in Chief, imposed on the rest of the government year after year. That President's devoted acolytes, naturally, are now gravely concerned that President Obama is not devoting enough time to Afghanistan.

I'll venture a guess here that Obama is relying a little more heavily on the chain of command than his predecessor did. As a practical matter, that means he'll spend more time talking with Gen. Petraeus -- the same officer Bush spent so much time with -- than with Gen. McChrystal. Obama will take flak from Bush Republicans for this, but in a way it will be his own fault. He really hasn't devoted much effort to making sure the blame for America being in the soup all over the world remains fixed on George Bush, his unacknowledged co-President, Secretary of State Condoleeza Wardrobe and the rest of the team that left him all these ticking time bombs. This is his mistake.

Public Capital

by wolfboy on Mon, 09/28/2009 - 10:05pm

I, for one, don't care so much about Obama devoting public capital (whatever that is) to Afghanistan as I do that he engage in an appropriate analytical process about how to proceed there. It may be that he is not spending enough time on this, but I don't believe it is possible to determine this from how many times he has spoken to McChrystal, or whether he devotes time to an Olympic bid.

I must concede I share some of Zathras' disgust.

Where were you in 2003, Mr. Brose, when it was clear to those paying attention that Afghanistan was headed in the wrong direction?

Where were you in 2006 when it was clear that Bush's Iraq surge would allow Afghanistan to deteriorate for another 2 or 3 years?

It is troublesome for me to

by Grant on Mon, 09/28/2009 - 11:53pm

It is troublesome for me to hear it as well. Based on what the Executive branch decides I'm content to either continue the U.S presence or scale it back based on the threat posed. However, I really hope that Obama is simply using the Olympics as a way of refreshing his capital before he makes unpopular decisions.
Even allowing for the fact that both men are very busy and in charge of prickly matters I hope that both are at least in regular contact even if not face to face. Time is slipping away for him to make a decision and in at least one of his five issues* he has to win soon.

On the other hand, I would like to know how many meetings Bush had with his top man** in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2008. It might be a bit more enlightening if we had some comparison.
*Israel/Palestine, Afghanistan, health care, Iran, the economy

**with all respect to any women in charge of course

I get it now...

by zopilote on Tue, 09/29/2009 - 9:21am

...thanks to the above posters for setting me straight:
It's Bush's fault.

I had no idea.

It's Bush's fault

by JPWREL on Tue, 09/29/2009 - 2:55pm

Well, yeah, actually it is Bush's fault. Right now Obama is like the guy with the broom and shovel who follows the elephant in the circus parade and must clean up the mess.

Still shilling for the Bush admin's late Afghan policy, huh?

by AlbertToronto on Wed, 09/30/2009 - 9:33pm

I can't believe the arrogance coming from these blogs. I have noticed that you have posted several comments lamenting President Obama's "rotten" treatment of President Karzai. Obama's hostility towards Karzai is much deserved and has been vindicated due to Karzai's outrageous manipulation of the Presidental Elections in Afghanistan. I know you really want to claim that President Bush's policy in regards to his treatment of Karzai was totally justified, but the facts of the past couple of months have shown you were wrong about Karzai all along. Obama should take all the time he needs to decide on the right strategy to pursue in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Any strategy he decides on will definitely be far superior than President Bush's previous military strategy of just air-raiding villages and killing civilians in Afghanistan.