Coming and going
Why Obama feels hemmed in on all sides
Coming and going
Dick Polman, Inquirer National Political Columnist
There's something about Barack Obama's new Afghanistan war plan that brings to mind the old lyric famously sung by Groucho Marx: "Hello, I must be going."
On the one hand, the president vowed in his West Point address last night "to bring this war to a successful conclusion...to end this war successfully." On the other hand, he intends "to allow us to begin the transfer of our forces out of Afganistan in July of 2011." On the one hand, he said that "our security is at stake in Afghanistan and Pakistan," thus necessitating the dispatch of an additional 30,000 American troops at "the fastest pace possible." On the other hand, sustaining our military presence for more than a few years would be "beyond what we can achieve at a reasonable cost" to our fragile economy.
Good grief. Obama is trying to walk a tightrope that's thinner than dental floss.
He made a decent enough case for choosing the least of the miserable available options, as we begin Year Nine of this war, but we really won't know for awhile whether he chose well. The key time window is a mere year - from the summer of '10 (when all the additional troops are finally in place) to the summer of '11 (when he plans to start withdrawals, because, in his words, "the nation I am most interested in building is our own").
Or, as Groucho sang in Animal Crackers, "I'll stay a week or two/ I'll stay the summer through/ But I am telling you / I must be going."
Given the extent of the mess that Obama has vowed to clean up (a mess caused in large part by the previous administration's well-documented benign neglect), one year is not a very long time in which to rack up stellar performance metrics. But given the fact that Americans are war weary already, one year may well be sufficient time to exhaust their patience.
Listening to the speech, it was clear that Obama feels hemmed in on all fronts - politically, financially, diplomatically. He felt compelled to rebut complaints from the left about the risks of a quagmire ("to abandon this area now...would significantly hamper our ability to keep the pressure on al Qaeda, and create an unacceptable risk of additional attacks on our homeland and our allies"). He also felt compelled to rebut complaints from the right about the pitfalls of setting withdrawal timelines ("It must be clear that Afghans will have to take responsibilty for their security, and that America has no interest in fighting an endless war in Afghanistan").
The president also said that he's feeling the financial pinch; vital national security interests notwithstanding, he's worried that the cost could imperil the prospects for economic recovery at home. As he put it, "In the wake of an economic crisis, too many of our friends and neighbors are out of work and struggle to pay the bills, and too many Americans are worried about the future facing our children....So we simply cannot afford to ignore the price of these wars." (He vowed to "work closely with Congress" to finance this surge, but offered no details on how it would be financed.)
His room to maneuver is also circumscribed by what he called "the highly polarized and partisan backdrop," the "rancor and cynicism and partisanship that has in recent times poisoned our national discourse" - which was why he sought in the early speech passages to reconnect Afghanistan to 9/11, perhaps hoping to rekindle the bipartisan support that existed in late '01 for taking the fight to that country.
And, perhaps most importantly, Obama's success or failure over the next 18 months is dependent in part on the performance of the Afghani government and the Afghani security forces. He stated that "the days of providing a blank check are over," which sounds pretty unequivocal. On the other hand, he also said that "we expect (emphasis mine) those who are ineffective and corrupt to be held accountable." Should we "expect" that President Karzai will crack down on his brother the drug dealer? What if Karzai fails to meet our "expectations?" Obama appeared to signal that the U.S. will try to work around Karzai if necessary, by supporting regional and local officials "that combat corruption and deliver for the people," but we won't know for some time whether those tactics are effective.
Which brings us to the withdrawal timetable that Republicans are predictably condemning. Actually, this timetable is more aspiration than certainty. Even though Obama cited his intention to "begin" troop pullouts in July '11, he said nothing in the speech about the pace of those pullouts, and, more importantly, nothing about when the pullouts would be completed. In other words, he has set a beginning date - but no end date. And this is because he said he will make those decisions "taking into account conditions on the ground." That's the key phrase - or, to be more precise, the loophole.
Which means that if the Afghani government isn't deemed to be sufficiently stable, and if the security forces aren't deemed to be sufficiently trained in sufficient numbers (by the way, Obama failed to say how he would define insufficiency), it seems clear that our exit will be staged in super slow motion. And if that scenario unfolds, the disenchanted left will complain that the exit isn't happening fast enough; and the disenchanted right (led by Dick Cheney, still suffering from the willful amnesia that bars him from shouldering his hefty share of the blame for this mess) will insist that the exit not happen at all.
All told, it was a grim night at West Point, with nary a flash of the famous Obama choppers. The burden of being commander-in-chief, and committing troops to an unpopular war with no easy options, seemed almost palpable, and there was little in his text to give Americans a lift. Reality right now is a bummer. Groucho, we sure could use you now.
Haha. Testosterone poisoning. Hilarious.— NigeltheMastiff- The responses of the liberals here and the rants of Polman and his ilk show why no Democrat can be trusted with the security of our nation.— CD75
- Mike, there are real examples Quakers could describe that refute your point of view of the world as evil. But then, you not only seem unable to accept anything that doesn't agree with your own opinion; you do it in as condescending a fashion as possible.— NigeltheMastiff
- CD75: Posted 12:16 PM, 12/02/2009. Man, you are one seriously messed up dupe, boy.— PicassoArt
- The original “blame others” Right wingers labeled Gorelick as being the person in Clinton's Justice Dept that "built" the wall that kept the intelligence community from sharing the pre-9-11 data and so they couldn't stop it. Only one problem, the FISA law was amended to regulate what Clinton had done by a Republican Congress to supposedly rein in someone they were whining was trying to "wag the dog" (curious how the right forgets the Clinton Admin serious attempts to take out bin laden – something Bush never did). Nice try. NOTHING will ever change the fact that Bush was given a PDB on August 6th CLEARLY stating that bin Laden was determined to strike in the US, and he and his incompetent neo-con administration (willfully?) failed to keep Americans safe from the worst terror attack on our own soil. Oh, and the 2nd terror attack on the US – the anthrax attacks – was also a failure to protect as well. Go away.— Sister Courtland
- Nigelthemastiff- I don't view the world as evil but there is evil in the world. And there is good in the World. Like America. We are the last best hope and the true force for good in this world.
- He is doing exactly as he said he would do before he was elected. How about that for a fresh change of pace?— CoolRunnings
- sister courtland- you said ....."curious how the right forgets the Clinton Admin serious attempts to take out bin laden – something Bush never did)".......... Now would that be when the Saudi's offered us Bin Ladin in 1996 but Clinton couldn't find a legal reason to hold Bin Ladin? Just curious exactly when this serious attempt to capture Bin Ladin on the part of Bill Clinton took place. Do tell
- It's interesting to see the reaction to Obama's speech, particularly to the July 2011 drawdown date. Chris Matthews said ""If I were with the Taliban right now, I'd put a little Post-it up on that month in 2011, and say: 'This is when we do OUR surge.'" Bob Schieffer asked "How you can set a deadline on what you're going to do. This is not a football game, where the time runs out. To win this war, you have to defeat the enemy." Gates was asked by McCain today if the July 2011 date was set in stone or was determined by the situation on the ground, since Obama seemed to insinuate both last night. Gates either refused or couldn't answer that question.— tom - wilmington, de
- Here is a little truth serum on Jamie Goerlich from the Clinton Admins. I see we have some leftist posters player revisionist history on here today "You might remember the name because as Clinton's Associate Attorney General she authorized unwarranted wiretaps and searches of Aldrich Ames, his house and his person without FISA oversight or any judicial review. She defended this action in testimony before Congress on July 14, 1994. She also was given credit for creating the "impenetrable wall" between the CIA and FBI that was a major contributing factor to our blindness in pre-9/11 intel. Although as a member of the 9/11 commission she did her best to whitewash her complicity, she still was justly saddled as the creator of the "wall of separation.""
- I found Obama's speech to be not believable. It look very half hearted. It looked like another case of what you get when people get elected by saying what people want to hear instead of what they believe. Obama should have run on what he really believes. I think he only ever wanted to some street credibility on national defense. He should have run as an anti war socialitst who wanted to raise taxes and redistribute wealth. I would have a lot more respect for him if was just honest with what he really believes. Now we are all paying the price for his clever stagecraft that fooled 52.7% of the electorate.
- SMike: Your quote about Gorelick is without attribution. Who said it?— mxlplk
- SPIN BORO MIKE: All negative! You da man, The Conse 'Pub man!— Talvenada
- TOM: Check out Spin Boro's rant on Clinton, and remember Bush is no longer president. When did Clinton return to The WH? Come on, Tom, make this legit.— Talvenada
- Jamie Gorelick is the poster child for a bad career political appointee. She had her hand in 9/11 (assoc. AG) and in Fannie/Freddie (She worked for Fannie as Vice chairman and got a VIP loan from Countrywide). She has now passed Barnie Frank and Chris Dodd as the worst public figure ever. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122230672551773977.html?mod=googlenews_wsj and this http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2004/apr/15/20040415-094758-5267r/ and this http://www.nationalreview.com/york/york200512200946.asp— NEPhilly
Cited by the Columbia Journalism Review as one of the nation's top political reporters, and lauded by the ABC News political website as "one of the finest political journalists of his generation," Dick Polman is a national political columnist at the Philadelphia Inquirer. He is on the full-time faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, as "writer in residence." Dick has been a frequent guest on C-Span, MSNBC, CNN, NPR and the BBC. He covered the 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004 presidential campaigns.
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