2
2
1
"We think we have a way ahead. But as
the secretary said, it's not going to be five brigades -- it's not going to be
a brigade a month because of the infrastructure piece -- the ability to receive
it, literally, in Afghanistan.
Pundit Certainty
Most pundits already had concluded, even before Thursday's
remarks, that the basic decision to send more troops was a done deal, that the
only question remaining is how many can be sent and how quickly, and that
Obama's continuing consultation with senior advisors is a charade. They may be right. I'm not sure.
However, if the President is, as he claimed this week, "angrier than Bob Gates about the leaks" regarding Afghanistan policy deliberations, I would think his anger would extend to those feeding talking points to the likes of Rasmussen. There remains a chance, I believe, that Obama may decide to stop letting himself be pushed around.
If Obama does not put a decisive end to McChrystal's
politicking, and does not remonstrate with Rasmussen, we can conclude that the
pundits are right. If so, and if
the troop increase is substantial--even though it will probably be portrayed as
mostly for training of the (barely existent) Afghan army--disaster looms both in
Afghanistan and in the corridors of power in Washington.
The dangerous impression would persist that, when the chips were down, Obama is no Jack Kennedy, nor Harry Truman, both of whom had the guts to face down the Pentagon by rebuffing military demands for wider war.
It would be difficult indeed to write a Profile in Courage
for one who bowed as low to his recalcitrant, myopic generals, as he did, de rigueur, to the Japanese emperor last
Saturday.
If Obama does bow to the generals, "transfer cases" (the euphemism the Washington Post uses for coffins carrying soldiers' remains) will continue to arrive in Delaware--and in greater numbers. By expanding the war in Afghanistan, Obama would let down these dead soldiers and their grieving families. Euphemism will be no help at all. And it will be a daunting challenge, to even the most soaring rhetoric, to make a persuasive case that these dead have not died in vain.
The supreme irony would remain; namely, that the Republicans
would continue to batter Obama, whatever he does regarding a war that their
erstwhile hero George W. Bush started but could not finish.
Already, many demoralized Democrats are looking fearfully toward Election 2010 and then Election 2012 when the Republicans could attribute the continuing quagmire in Afghanistan to Obama's "indecision," and to cite this as proof that he does not deserve a second term.
At that point I can visualize a GOP ticket headed by
Petraeus and Gates and a platform advocating, as McArthur did so many years
ago, for wider war.
Now is the time for President Obama to stop this latest March of Folly. Now.
