Unfinished business: Obama's case for renewed effort in AfPak

A few structural notes on Obama's speech at West Point laying out his strategy for Afghanistan:

1) Obama made an interesting dual use of the U.S. experience in Iraq.  First, he used it to explain why "the situation has deteriorated in Afghanistan" --  because "Throughout this period [of Taliban resurgence] our troop levels in Afghanistan remained a fraction of what they were in Iraq."  At the same time, he used the template of what he characterized as a successful surge in Iraq to build out his vision of success in Afghanistan: 

Taken together, these additional American and international troops will allow us to accelerate handing over responsibility to Afghan forces, and allow us to begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011. Just as we have done in Iraq, we will execute this transition responsibly, taking into account conditions on the ground. We will continue to advise and assist Afghanistan’s Security Forces to ensure that they can succeed over the long haul. But it will be clear to the Afghan government – and, more importantly, to the Afghan people – that they will ultimately be responsible for their own country.

This analogy was Obama's chief device for arguing the claim that the swiftness of an envisioned drawdown of forces in Afghanistan will be almost directly proportional to the swiftness of the coming troop buildup.

Score one for McCain

Fair is fair: a very effective formulation on McCain's part here, reacting to Obama's plan to withdraw most troops from Irq in sixteen months while adding combat brigades in Afghanistan:

But he cautioned that the improved conditions in Iraq could be “reversed very easily” and he warned against shifting resources too dramatically from Iraq to Afghanistan. “You can’t choose to lose a war in Iraq, in my view, in order to win in Afghanistan,” he said.

The runup is also well-done:

“I’m glad that Senator Obama is going to get a chance for the first time to sit down with Gen. David Petraeus and understand what the surge was all about,” Mr. McCain said on NBC, referring to the troop-increase plan last year that he strongly supported even as Mr. Obama was calling for withdrawal.

“I hope he will have a chance to admit that he badly misjudged the situation, and he was wrong when he said that the surge wouldn’t work,” Mr. McCain continued. “It has succeeded and we’re winning the war.”

Beats his tired and ill-founded charge that Obama's Iraq/Afghanistan policy is motivated by political expediency.

Assessing salvage

Today David Brooks made the case that George Bush & co. "got one right" with the surge, and that "if the U.S. had withdrawn in the depths of the chaos, the world would be in worse shape today." Andrew Sullivan, acknowledging that Brooks is right "up to a point," offers up a litany of caveats:

We do not know what the long-term implications of the last year will be. History is unpredictable like that. It may be that historians in the future will look back at the surge and argue that it was the chimera that kept America in a no-win imperial province for decades, precipitating a wider and unnecessary war for oil when we should have been using our own unique skills to forge a post-oil future. It may be that a withdrawal by now would have forced more quickly a resolution of the power-struggles within Iraq, with more short-term cost and horror but less long-term agony and drain on the West.

While Sullivan insists that he doesn't "fall into the camp of those denying the surge's progress" - also true "up to a point" -- I think there's still a degree of denial in stressing that we don't know how history will judge the surge. Whatever happens in years ahead, the surge has been a catalyst of real improvement and has created real opportunities. With violence way down, the Mahdi army pulling back, Sunni cooperation increasing and the Sunnis visibly impressed by the government going after Shiite militias -- what more could have been asked of U.S. policy 18 months ago?

There's always indeterminacy in judging the effect of given policies. Rudolph Giuliani's support for new policing methods was one of many reasons for the crime drop in NYC in the 1990s, but Giuliani did deserve credit for taking action that capitalized on positive demographic and cultural changes. The surge benefited from the Sunni awakening and from the Mahdi rope-a-dope, but it also created conditions that made those decisions by Sunni leaders and Sadr possible.

More specifically, I don't think it's fair (or will have been fair, if Iraq deteriorates), to imagine the surge responsible for keeping us in Iraq for decades or for diverting us from solving our energy problems. Those decisions depend on future leaders. The next President is in a better position to extricate the U.S. from Iraq than he would have been minus the surge. McCain was right in December '06 when he said that the Iraqi government would not have the capacity to make political progress unless violence was reduced and a measure of stability achieved first.

The U.S. fought on in Vietnam on Nixon's watch for years after Nixon stated positively that we couldn't win. That's a crime. But that's not what's happened in Iraq. Brooks is right. The same character traits that led Bush to start a war under false pretenses and drastically mishandle it for four years also led him to choose an unpopular policy that has a reasonable chance of salvaging something from the wreckage.

Two Times-ers: Andrew Sullivan and Frank Rich channel each other

In two different Sunday Times (Timeses?) today, two political commentators with very different perspectives addressed the same phenomenon: the apparent fact that John McCain, despite championing the surge when almost no one else did, is getting little credit from voters for the dramatic reduction in violence in Iraq.

The London Sunday Times' Andrew Sullivan, a self-proclaimed conservative attempting to redefine the movement who's simultaneously one of Obama's most passionate admirers, retains far more respect and sympathy for McCain than Frank Rich, the New York Times scourge of CW in general (as he likes to frame it, anyway) and Republican mythography and governance in particular. But Sullivan no more than Rich finds in McCain's support for the surge a reason to support McCain. Noting that in supporting the surge "McCain was right...it’s unarguable that the prospects for a noncatastrophe in Iraq have vastly improved over the past 12 months," Sullivan sees irony in the electorate's response:

So McCain is basking in success, right? Vindicated by events, he can present himself as the man who rescued the Iraq occupation and is best positioned to take it forward. Easy as pie, no? Alas for McCain, not at all.

The overwhelming response among Americans to good news from Iraq is a simple question: can we come home now? With a hefty majority still believing the war was a mistake in the first place, the “success” of the surge is less a vindication of the entire enterprise than an opportunity to get the hell out with less blowback than previously feared. Moreover, the less chaotic the situation in Iraq, the easier it is for the Democrats to persuade Americans that the relatively inexperienced Barack Obama is not that big a risk as commander-in-chief.

Rich sees no irony but notes the same political reality:

In America, the war has been a settled issue since early 2007. No matter what has happened in Iraq since then, no matter what anyone on any side of the Iraq debate has had to say about it, polls have consistently found that a majority of Americans judge the war a mistake and want out. For that majority, the war is over except for finalizing the withdrawal details....

But reminding voters of his identification with Iraq, no matter how he spins it, pays no political dividends to Mr. McCain. People just don’t want to hear about it.

Both suggest that notwithstanding the fact that McCain forcefully advocated a policy (rejected by Obama) that has made "noncatastrophe" far more likely, Obama looks better equipped to build on this fragile success.

Sullivan:

Withdrawal the right way, moreover, plays to Obama’s strengths, not McCain’s. McCain is a superb fighter and underdog, a man who likes his conflicts clear and his wars epic. He takes strong moral stands and sticks with them. But what is now required is a deft and subtle assessment of future military needs, a hefty dose of canny diplomacy with Iran and Syria and an ability to retain the trust of Americans that an exit is both feasible and imminent. On all these, Obama is obviously a more pragmatic choice.

Rich:

The fact is that Mr. Obama frequently recognizes “the reduction of violence in Iraq” (his words) and has said he is “encouraged” by it. He has never said that he would refuse to consult with commanders on the ground, and he has never called for a precipitous withdrawal. His mantra on Iraq, to the point of tedium, has always been that “we must be as careful getting out as we were careless getting in.” His roughly 16-month timetable isn’t hasty and isn’t “retreat.” As The Economist, a supporter of the war, recently put it, a safer Iraq does not necessarily validate Mr. McCain’s “insistence on America staying indefinitely” and might make Mr. Obama’s 16-month framework “more feasible.”

Both, moreover, attribute Obama's greater likelihood of bringing U.S. involvement to an acceptable conclusion to the contrast in the two men's strategic goals: for McCain, a very gradual wind-down toward a peaceful long-termU.S. protectorate, and for Obama, a relatively rapid withdrawal that allows the U.S. to concentrate more effort on Afghanistan. (To achieve the goal of withdrawing most forces from Iraq, Obama on April 11, while questioning U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker, laid out a minimalist goal for Iraq: "If...our criteria is a messy, sloppy status quo but there's not, you know, huge outbreaks of violence, there's still corruption, but the country is struggling along, but it's not a threat to its neighbors and it's not an Al Qaida base, that seems to me an achievable goal within a measurable timeframe." Crocker essentially accepted Obama's formulation; McCain demands much more.)

Here's Sullivan on why McCain's prescription for Iraq is likely to be rejected:

You can see this in McCain’s biggest gaffe of the primary campaign. He was asked how long American troops would be in Iraq. He said he didn’t care if it were a hundred years or even a thousand years. He meant in a noncombat role, not in active warfare, but his answer revealed a core assumption: that the US will have permanent military bases in Iraq for the indefinite future, and that this is the equivalent of the long-term presence in Germany and South Korea. A pliant Arab state, fortified with US bases for the next century, and a staging post to contain Iran: these are McCain’s obvious best-case scenarios. And as the Bush administration’s plans for up to 60 permanent bases in Iraq are rejected by many Iraqi politicians, McCain’s stance begins, once again, to morph into Bush’s.

For most Americans, this is not a good thing. They have no desire to keep young Americans policing the Sunni-Shi’ite fault line halfway across the globe indefinitely; most want the massive resources now being drained by Iraq to be directed homeward. And there’s enough distrust of politicians who backed this war in the first place to be suspicious of anyone who did so and who is still eager to keep troops there indefinitely.

Here's Rich:

Should voters tune in, they'll also discover that the McCain policy is nonsensical on its face. If "we are winning" and the surge is a "success," then what is the rationale for keeping American forces bogged down there while the Taliban regroups ominously in Afghanistan? Why, if this is victory, does Mr. McCain keep threatening that "chaos and genocide" will follow our departure? And why should we take the word of a prophet who failed to anticipate the chaos and ethnic cleansing that would greet our occupation?

And exactly how, as Mr. McCain keeps claiming, is an indefinite American occupation akin to our long-term military role in South Korea? The diminution of violence notwithstanding, Iraq is an active war zone. And unlike South Korea, it isn't asking America to remain to protect it from a threatening neighbor. Iraq's most malevolent neighbor, Iran, is arguably Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's closest ally. In the most recent survey, in February, only 27 percent of Iraqis said the American presence is improving their country's security. Far from begging us to stay, some Iraqi politicians, including Mr. Maliki, have been pandering to their own election-year voters by threatening to throw the Yankees out.

Perhaps there's not much surprising in two Obama supporters finding Obama's strategic vision more compelling than McCain's, whatever the long- or short-term success of the surge. But there's something striking in the similar arc these two see in McCain's sandwiching of at least a partial strategic success (supporting the surge, which even Rich acknowledges might facilitate U.S. withdrawal) between two failures: supporting the war in the first place, and failing now to define an endgame acceptable to most Americans.

John McCain was right

Say what you like about McCain's policy incoherence -- his major on-the-record flip-flops (Bush tax cuts, warrantless wiretapping, exempting the CIA from torture prohibitions, immigration reform, offshore drilling, etc. etc.), his open disavowals of supposedly current policy positions (not privatizing the existing social security program, eliminating the alternative minimum tax, refusing to bail out homeowners), his ventures into fantasyland (League of Democracies, offsetting hundreds of billions in tax cuts by eliminating earmarks).

The fact remains: he was right about the surge. Not necessarily about what to do next, or what our long-term goals in Iraq should be, but about the need to reduce violence and reach a minimum level of stability before we could expect any political progress. He was not just lucky-right; he was right because he understood the military requirements, and how a measure of military success might give the Iraqi government room to maneuver.

In hindsight, this good judgment was on full display in McCain's Socratic steering of Robert Gates during Gates' confirmation hearing on December 5, 2006 (my emphasis below):

I'd like to follow on just what Senator Levin said. We are not winning the war in Iraq; is that correct?

GATES: That is my view -- yes, sir.

MCCAIN: And, therefore, status quo is not acceptable?

GATES: That is correct, sir.

MCCAIN: I know you did a great deal of work with the Iraq Study Group, and there is a general consensus of opinion now, in hindsight, that we didn't have sufficient number of troops at the time of the invasion to control Iraq -- either Anbar Province, the looting, most importantly the weapons and ammunition depots that were looted at the time.

When anarchy prevails, it's very difficult to gain control of a country.

Do you agree that, at the time of the invasion, we didn't have sufficient troops to control the country, in hindsight?

GATES: Well, I had to deal with hindsight in some of the decisions that I've made, Senator McCain, and sometimes it's not very comfortable.

I suspect, in hindsight, some of the folks in the administration probably would not make the same decisions that they made.

GATES: And I think one of those is that there clearly were insufficient troops in Iraq after the initial invasion to establish control over the country.

MCCAIN: And yet, at this particular point in time, when the suggestion is made, as the situation deteriorates and the status quo is not acceptable, that we reduce troops or, as General Abizaid said, that he had sufficient number of troops, in your study, when did we reach the point where we went from not having enough troops to having sufficient number of troops as the situation -- boots on the ground -- as the situation deteriorated?

That's a non sequitur that I have yet found to -- I'm unable to intellectually embrace.

GATES: Senator, I was a part of the Iraq Study Group during their education phase, I would say, and I resigned before they began their deliberations.

I would tell you that when we were in Iraq that we inquired of the commanders whether they had enough troops and whether a significant increase might be necessary. And I would say that the answer we received was that they thought they had adequate troops.

It seems to me that, as one considers all of the different options, in terms of a change of approach in Iraq and a change in tactics, that inquiring about this again is clearly something -- and it may be that a secretary of defense might get a more candid answer than an outside study group that was visiting them.

GATES: But we certainly -- the response that we received in Baghdad was that they had enough troops.

MCCAIN: Then the second and third questions should have been asked, and that is: Why is the conditions and situation continuing to deteriorate and not improve, if you have sufficient assets and people in order to get the job done -- which we now agree is not satisfactory?

One of the reasons given is it would be too great a strain on the military today; that we don't have sufficient active duty and Guard forces.

There were some of us, three and a half years ago, that said we needed to increase the size of the Army and the Marine Corps. And the answer was: Well, that would take a couple of years.

Well, years have passed, and we still haven't got -- and we're still putting an enormous strain on the active duty and Guard forces.

Do you believe that we need to increase the size of the Marine Corps and the Army?

GATES: Senator, if I'm confirmed, I'm very open to the possibility and the necessity of an increase in the end-strength of the Army.

However, first, because we have 150,000 troops in the field, and we have a regular Army of about a half a million, and a Guard and Reserve of about another half a million, I would like to, if I'm confirmed, to first of all ensure for myself that the other 350,000 troops in the regular Army are doing what we want them to be doing and that they are all needed in the roles that they are in as a way of making sure that before we increase the end strength that we're using the strength we have in the way we ought to be.

GATES: But if the answer to that question is that's about the way it ought to be, that those troops are deployed in the way we want them deployed, then I'm very open to the possibility of an increase in the end strength.

MCCAIN: Well, again, I think when you look at -- we are living in a very dangerous world, whether you look at Iran, North Korea, the crisis in Lebanon as we speak -- the list goes on and on -- it'd be very difficult for us to envision us being capable of handling another contingency, given the fact that our military leaders are saying it would be too great a strain on the military and the Guard even to put additional troops into Iraq.

I hope you'll look at it very seriously.

Mr. Secretary, finally, General Zinni, who is highly respected by this committee, who was former head of the CENTCOM, who was speaking of Prime Minister Maliki, said, quote: "You can't put pressure on a wounded guy. There's a premise that the Iraqis are not doing enough now, that there's a capability that they've not employed or used. I'm not so sure they are capable of stopping sectarian violence."

Dr. Gates, I don't think they're capable either. And I think political solutions are breed (sic) by stability. And if you have military instability, it's very hard to come up with a political solution.

And just about everybody I know who looks at these plans for partition, for withdrawal to bases outside of Iraq or bases inside of Iraq believe that a chaotic situation would ensue.

I think this is -- I agree with most expert that this is our last chance to save this situation. And unless we stabilize conditions on the ground, I think it's going to be very difficult to get the kind of political solution that all of us seek.

Recently, I saw this proposal to move the Marines out of Anbar Province into Baghdad.

MCCAIN: What do we say to the families of those young people who died in the first and second battle of Fallujah when we abandon it to terrorist organizations again?

I wish you every success. I know that all of us on this committee and in this country have nothing but the interests of our nation's security and the men and women who serve it as our highest priority.

And I hope you will help us gain consensus so that, as a nation, we can move forward and make sure that the American people are not subjected to more sacrifice as a result of the failures that we've experienced in the past in this conflict.

And again, I thank you for serving, Doctor.

On three points at least McCain's logic is impressive: 1) if we didn't have enough troops to stabilize the country at invasion's end, how could we be said to have enough on the ground as the situation was deteriorating (in fall 2006)? 2) if we do have enough, why aren't we winning? and 3) stability will breed political progress, not vice versa.

In December 2006, other answers to 1) and 2) seemed logical to many (including a very nonexpert me): there were not enough troops to win with, but a modest increase was unlikely to improve the situation, and our occupying forces might be doing more harm than good. Those answers were wrong. McCain's was right. It wasn't luck. In this case, he knew what was needed, and he staked his political career on it.

P.S. I don't think it should be necessary at this point to argue that the situation in Iraq has improved markedly on every front. The Economist summarizes well:

Yet it is now plain that over the past several months, while Americans have been distracted by their presidential primaries, many things in Iraq have at long last started to go right.

This improvement goes beyond the fall in killing that followed General David Petraeus's “surge”. Iraq's government has gained in stature and confidence. Thanks to soaring oil prices it is flush with money. It is standing up to Iraq's assorted militias and asserting its independence from both America and Iran. The overlapping wars—Sunni against American, Sunni against Shia and Shia against Shia—that harrowed Iraq after the invasion of 2003 have abated. The country no longer looks in imminent danger of flying apart or falling into everlasting anarchy. In September 2007 this newspaper supported the surge not because we had faith in Iraq but only in the desperate hope that the surge might stop what was already a bloodbath from becoming even worse (see article). The situation now is different: Iraq is still a mess, but something approaching a normal future for its people is beginning to look achievable.

Related post:
Can Obama cope with success in Iraq?

Can Obama cope with success in Iraq?

John McCain would not be where is if the surge had not led to real improvements in security, and possibly the beginnings of real political rapprochement, in Iraq. It makes sense that Republican primary voters would be more responsive to signs of progress than would the electorate as a whole. A strong majority of Americans still say that the war was a mistake, and a strong majority still favor swift withdrawal. But perceptions may lag a changing reality by several months. If conditions in Iraq continue to improve between now and November, McCain may reap a rich harvest.

Say what you like about McCain's repeated and egregious misstatements of foreign policy fact (Iran aiding al Qaeda, troop levels down to pre-surge levels, we've fruitlessly negotiated with Iran for decades, etc. etc.), his strategic straitjacket (every troublesome dictator is Hitler; every Democratic leader from Bill Clinton to Barack Obama is Neville Chamberlain; McCain is Churchill-in-waiting), his over-reliance on force and coercion (advocating a hyper-aggressive stance against North Korea in 1999, 2002 and 2006; advocating force against Saddam since 1998), his strategic incoherence (assembling a League of Democracies, aka a permanent 'coalition of the willing,' that would isolate China and Russia and undercut the UN). As wrong as he was in cheerleading our entry into Iraq, he may have been equally right about the potential of the surge (though we'll never know what the effect of following the Iraq Study Group blueprint would have been).

Maliki's latest military successes in Basra, Sadr City and possibly now in Mosul, and Sadr's latest rope-a-dope should make unbiased observers at the very least hesitate to assert that the apparent progress is all a bridge to nowhere. And from a political point of view, serially denigrating sign after sign of progress is not a good place to be.

All of which is to say that a McCain attack like this one, delivered yesterday in Arlington to AIPAC, packs a force to be reckoned with:

Another matter of great importance to the security of both America and Israel is Iraq. You would never know from listening to those who are still caught up in angry arguments over yesterday's options, but our troops in Iraq have made hard-won progress under General Petraeus' new strategy. And Iraqi political leaders have moved ahead - slowly and insufficiently, but forward nonetheless. Sectarian violence declined dramatically, Sunnis in Anbar province and throughout Iraq are cooperating in the fight against al Qaeda, and Shia extremist militias no longer control Basra - the Maliki government and its forces are in charge. Al Qaeda terrorists are on the run, and our troops are going to make sure they never come back.

It's worth recalling that America's progress in Iraq is the direct result of the new strategy that Senator Obama opposed. It was the strategy he predicted would fail, when he voted cut off funds for our forces in Iraq. He now says he intends to withdraw combat troops from Iraq - one to two brigades per month until they are all removed. He will do so regardless of the conditions in Iraq, regardless of the consequences for our national security, regardless of Israel's security, and in disregard of the best advice of our commanders on the ground.

This course would surely result in a catastrophe. If our troops are ordered to make a forced retreat, we risk all-out civil war, genocide, and a failed state in the heart of the Middle East. Al Qaeda terrorists would rejoice in the defeat of the United States. Allowing a potential terrorist sanctuary would profoundly affect the security of the United States, Israel, and our other friends, and would invite further intervention from Iraq's neighbors, including an emboldened Iran. We must not let this happen. We must not leave the region to suffer chaos, terrorist violence and a wider war.

Andrew Sullivan, reflecting on the Maliki government's recent gains, emphasizes the policy challenge but does not look at the political challenge that those gains pose for Obama:

The trap Obama must not be caught in is one of excessive pessimism. Conditions now favor expeditious withdrawal more than they did only a few months ago. But the manner of withdrawal, its pace, and its concomitant diplomacy now require a different cast, and may require an even different one next February and March. None of this means that this war was not a mistake; it does suggest it need not in the medium term be a catastrophe. Petraeus deserves the lion's share of the credit; luck and time and the self-defeating nihilism of the Jihadists have helped. But Bush and McCain equally merit points for pursuing the surge, even though the metrics pointed to failure. Obama needs to capitalize on these gains, not dismiss them.

The hard task of "capitalizing on those gains" will be the unquestioned business of the next president. What's more problematic for Obama is to position himself during the campaign to be able to do that -- and to maintain credibility through the campaign if progress in Iraq continues. As Sullivan suggests, Obama in office may plausibly be able to maintain or even further progress in Iraq by steadily drawing down troops (and in fact, McCain has responded to the political pressure generated by his "100 years statement"to indicate that he will look for opportunities to do the same). What's hard is for Obama to grant now that progress in Iraq is not all illusory or temporary, that the surge was at least a major catalyst of that progress, that fostering stability in Iraq is a necessary goal, and that doing so may conflict at times with unbroken troop withdrawal. He has to find a way to acknowledge during the campaign what Samantha Powers spilled off-message: that "listening to the generals" may affect strategy as well as tactics.

The toxic part, politically, is that McCain's claim that "America's progress in Iraq is the direct result of the new strategy that Senator Obama opposed" has real bite, and Obama may need to find a way to acknowledge its partial truth. The elements of framing such an acknowledgment might include asserting that a) drawing down the U.S. troop presence remains crucial to furthering the Iraqi government's sovereignty, to the health of our armed forces, and to advancing our core strategic needs elsewhere, e.g. Afghanistan; 2) the surge's success is welcome but cannot be sustained in a vaccuum; building on gains requires the kind of concerted multi-front diplomatic effort proposed by the Iraq study group, and also requires a visibly shrinking U.S. presence; 3) the surge was means to an end of Iraqi self-sufficiency; its gains cannot be sustained with 'more of the same.'

There is at least a symmetry in the gravitational pull of both candidates toward the center. McCain needs to walk back his enthusiasm for an unending troop presence, and Obama needs qualify his commitment to a rigid withdrawal timetable. McCain needs to answer for enabling and cheer-leading a war that Americans will always regard as a mistake, , and Obama may ultimately be challenged to explain his rooted opposition to the surge.

UPDATE: The New Yorker's George Packer has weighed in with a blueprint for Obama adjusting his position on troop withdrawal.