In which Obama rhetorically contains the Islamic State

Remember the brouhaha late last summer over Obama's rapidly evolving language with respect to the aim of military action against the Islamic State? Was the plan that we did not entirely have yet merely to contain the rapidly expanding monstrosity, or rather to "degrade and destroy" it? Over the course of a frenetic couple of weeks, the messaging settled on an implicit extended timeline, in which the administration vowed to "degrade and ultimately destroy" IS. 

The qualifier "ultimately," I noted at the time, became Obama's linguistic tool of choice to bridge the chasm required to build or buy some kind of viable ally or basis for a political solution in Syria -- a process not yet begun. Remember "we don't have a strategy yet"? That was Obama's maladroit way of signaling that U.S. military action in Syria would be limited for want of a viable ally.

In an interview with NPR's Steve Inskeep on Dec. 29, in an almost throwaway subordinated clause, Obama rang a new variation on that formula with the same key qualifier:

And on the international front, you know, even as we're managing ISIL and trying to roll them back and ultimately defeat them...

...and the sentence moved on to Afghanistan. Thus was the problem rhetorically contained in a roundup sentence. But Inskeep, to his credit, didn't leave it there: he returned to the repressed at the very end of the interview. And there Obama bid at once to give the danger its due and, so to speak, contain it within the country's broader to-do list.

Afghan Taliban: "Symbiotic" with, or sick of, al Qaeda?

Not to pretend to any great insight here, but this gives me vertigo:

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said bin Laden's killing near Pakistan's capital vindicated his government's growing opposition to U.S.-led combat operations in the Afghan countryside.

"Osama was not in Afghanistan: they found him in Pakistan," Mr. Karzai said. "The war on terror is not in Afghan villages…but in the safe havens of terrorism outside Afghanistan." 

That has been true for many years. Woodward's Obama's Wars begins with Mike McConnell briefing President-elect Obama on the 150 terrorist havens strung through Pakistan's tribal areas -- a network far outstripping that available to bin Laden before 9/11.   It's hard not to wonder: If Karzai is itching to get the troops out and strike a deal with the Taliban, by what Kafkaesque logic would we persist in working against his will to transform his government into something it will never be and clear out adversaries he regards as compatriots? And how can we drive the Taliban out of Afghanistan when they're so comfortably ensconced across the border?

The Ahmed Karzai Good Governance Award

Quote of the day:

"General McChrystal creates an environment of trust among Afghans."

       - Ahmed Wali Karzai 

That's like Bernie Madoff endorsing a money manager for his probity. Brother Ahmed is widely suspected of being one of Afghanistan's biggest drug warlords.

More generally, the spectacle of the Afghan leadership pulling out all the media stops to weigh in on a U.S. personnel decision is a bit of an eye-rubber. We're so used to the opposite -- public displays alternately of disapproval or "love" for Hamid Karzai, various assessments of various Afghan cabinet members as corrupt (or competent, when they're canned).  Not that we haven't heard before that Karzai likes McChrystal/doesn't like Eikenberry. But especially in light of Karzai's recent very public expressions of mistrust/disgust in the allied effort, it is interesting to see him thus passionately engaged:

“The president of Afghanistan announced his confidence in General Stanley McChrystal, he has been a very effective and very integrated commander of ISAF and NATO,” said Mr. Omar, referring to the International Security Assistance Force.

He added that General McChrystal “has been a great partner of the Afghan people, and he has increased the level of trust between our international partners and the Afghan people. We are at a very sensitive point and any gap in this process will not be helpful.”

UPDATE: I wasn't quite sure what to make of my own cognitive dissonance above. E.J. Dionne provides an interpretation of sorts:

The incredible shrinking Afghan surge

There was once a series of Peanuts comics in which Snoopy reflected on a tussle with a cat (who ripped him to shreds). In each comic, Snoopy doubled the weight of his antagonist -- that 50-pound cat, that 100-pound cat, that 200-pound cat (if memory serves...).

Something of the opposite seems to be happening in newspaper reports of Obama's "final" decision on a troop surge in Afghanistan. Two days ago, CBS News reported an "exclusive" that Obama had decided on 40,000 additional troops. The White House furiously denied it. Yesterday, the Times' Elisabeth Bumiller reported that Gates, Mullen and Clinton were "coalescing around a proposal to send 30,000 or more additional American troops." Now, this evening (Nov. 11), Bumiller and Mark Landler are out with a story claiming that Obama and team "have begun examining an option that would send relatively few troops to Afghanistan, about 10,000 to 15,000, with most designated as trainers for the Afghan security forces," prompted in some degree by reservations expressed by Karl Eikenberry, current U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan and once the top U.S. commander there.

As a complement, the Times also reports tonight something I've long suspected - that much of this angst is choreographed to put some pressure on Karzai and his government. Noting that the U.S. in one sense has precious little leverage, Helene Cooper reports:

Officials said Mr. Obama’s Afghanistan review took weeks longer than expected in part because officials were unhappy about reports of fraud in the Afghan elections, and they implied that even after the new Afghan strategy is announced, details will not be final.

“I’m not saying that we’ll be in a perpetual state of review, but the time the president has taken so far should signal to people that he will not hesitate to take a hard look at things and question assumptions if things are not moving in the right direction,” a senior White House official said.

Indeed, an AP story by Ben Feller and Anne Gearan, which claims that Obama has rejected all options presented to him in their current form, suggests a search for further leverage in the crevices of troop deployment:

But the president raised questions at a war council meeting Wednesday that could alter the dynamic of both how many additional troops are sent to Afghanistan and what the timeline would be for their presence in the war zone, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss Obama's thinking.

Military officials said Obama has asked for a rewrite before and resisted what one official called a one-way highway toward war commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal's recommendations for more troops. The sense that he was being rushed and railroaded has stiffened Obama's resolve to seek information and options beyond military planning, officials said, though a substantial troop increase is still likely...

The key sticking points appear to be timelines and mounting questions about the credibility of the Afghan government. Administration officials said Wednesday that Obama wants to make it clear that the U.S. commitment in Afghanistan is not open-ended.

Leverage, leverage, leverage. Cooper's story suggests a search in other directions:

While they declined to go into many specifics, the officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the Afghanistan review is not complete yet, said they had a range of diplomatic, financial and economic options if the targets were not met.

One lever, they said, would be to shift money from Mr. Karzai’s central government to provincial leaders who perform better than their national counterparts. And although a complete withdrawal of American troops is not considered an option, Mr. Obama might endorse a partial withdrawal that would lead to a more limited counterinsurgency strategy initially advocated by Vice President Joseph R. Biden, Jr.

It would seem that Obama wants Karzai in a Skinner box. At the same time, he does not sound like a man preparing to disengage.

What does Abdullah want?

On Sunday, Abdullah said he would not participate in a runoff election that was bound to be fraudulent. He discouraged his supporters from taking to the streets in protest. In a press conference today, he insisted that he is not interested in being part of Karzai's government or in winning seats for his followers ("We are not going to deal...I am not interested") .

Today he also called the cancellation of the runoff "illegal" -- and suggested that there is no Afghan government for the U.S. and allies to credibly support:

Eight years down the road we still need more troops. In the absence of a credible, reliable, and legitimate partner, more soldiers, more resources are the only thing which will be resulted....

A government which in its formation is based on an illegal decision by a body, to hope that the second government would deliver in dealing with the corruption, issues of governance, [improving] security in this country, it sounds like an exaggeration.

Meanwhile, The Christian Science Monitor reports that northern Afghanistan, where Abdullah's power is based, is an emerging new front for the insurgency.

So what does Abdullah want at this point? And what would be his advice to Obama?

If I had to guess on little info, I'd say he wants substantial power in Karzai's government, notwithstanding his protestations --or Karzai's poor track record with regard to power sharing. But who am I to guess?

Obama to Karzai: No marriage, no dowry?

I have noted before that at least since September 20 Obama has been signalling that the ostentatiously public review of Afghan strategy is at least in part an attempt to force a credible outcome -- most likely a unity government between Karzai and Abdullah -- to the fraudulent Afghan election. In his talk show blitz at that time, Obama recast the troop increase he ordered in March as a bid to secure the election and stressed that he had at that time planned a second review in the election's wake.

The point may seem obvious by now - how could the U.S. go all-in to support a government re-seated by an election so fraudulent it insistently recalls the bogus election in Iran? In any case, the linkage was made explicit by a chorus of administration officials and allies this weekend. From the Times' talk show roundup:

WASHINGTON — The White House signaled Sunday that President Obama would postpone any decision on sending more troops to Afghanistan until the disputed election there had been settled and resulted in a government that could work with the United States.

As an audit of Afghanistan’s Aug. 20 election ground toward a conclusion, American officials pressed President Hamid Karzai to accept a runoff vote or share power with his main rival, Abdullah Abdullah, a former foreign minister. Although Mr. Karzai’s support appeared likely to fall below 50 percent in the final count, together he and Mr. Abdullah received 70 percent, in theory enough to forge a unity government with national credibility.

The question at the heart of the matter, said President Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, is not “how many troops you send, but do you have a credible Afghan partner for this process that can provide the security and the type of services that the Afghan people need?” He appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union” and CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

He echoed the thoughts of Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, a top Obama ally and the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, who said in a separate interview from Kabul, “I don’t see how President Obama can make a decision about the committing of our additional forces, or even the further fulfillment of our mission that’s here today, without an adequate government in place.” His interview was broadcast on “Face the Nation.”

“It would be irresponsible,” Mr. Emanuel told CNN. Then he continued, paraphrasing the senator, that it would be reckless to decide on the troop level without first doing “a thorough analysis of whether, in fact, there’s an Afghan partner ready to fill that space that U.S. troops would create and become a true partner in governing.”

Looks awfully like no shotgun marriage, no dowry.

UPDATE 10/27: Joe Klein (10/24) also sees Obama's pause as a conscious application of political pressure:

Rahm Emanuel's television appearance last Sunday, in which he said that no decision could be made on more troops until the Afghan government resolved its electoral mess, was part of a coordinated effort to get Karzai to agree to a runoff election. And it worked, but not before a baloney-storm erupted among the wingers, criticizing the President and Emanuel for dithering about sending more troops. As soon as Karzai agreed to the runoff, a second message was sent by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates--plans were proceeding for the next stage of the war. The Emanuel-Gates statements were routinely described as "dueling" and, for a day or so, that's exactly how it seemed: a slight breech between the Pentagon and the White House.

But it wasn't. And Obama's effort to formulate a new strategy for Afghanistan is, by all accounts, a coherent effort to incorporate four information streams--the military situation on the ground (the McChrystal stream); the military situation across the Pakistan border, where a major offensive is taking place that will have an impact on the situation in Afghanistan; the Afghan political stream; and the latest intelligence about the size, strength and intentions of Al Qaeda.

Is Obama trying to force a unity government in Afghanistan?

On Sunday night, I noted that in his Sunday talk show blitz Obama seemed to offer a new rationale -- or a new emphasis in that rationale, at least -- for why he ordered fresh troops to Afghanistan in March:

I did order 21,000 additional troops there to make sure that we could secure the election, because I thought that was important. That was before the review was completed. I also said after the election I want to do another review (my emphasis).

Is Obama hesitating at the brink of escalation, holding back General McChrystal's report and request for additional troops, because the Afghan election was such a balls-up? Note that Obama not only tied his March decision to securing the election but implied that the subsequent review would be focused in large part on the election results.

Could the pause be an act of brinkmanship against Karzai? Will there be a sequence in which an Afghan unity government is announced, and then the administration announces a troop increase? Or is Obama simply preparing to cut bait?