I know this is a little old, but it is totally relevant to today’s discussion about the future of Afghanistan. As you read through this story, you come to understand why McChrystal or any other military leader in this war might be frustrated. I said this before, and I will say this again. There is not a general out there that thinks that declaring a withdrawal date is a good idea in the context of winning wars. This administration is set on July 2011, and General Petraeus has made his promises to that administration that he could finish this in that time frame. It is a promise he will have to break in my view.
Most of all, the Taliban love this date, and it is a countdown to their victory. The enemy will certainly pour it on as this date gets closer, and I just don’t see how this is helpful for any kind of plans with Afghanistan. Or the Taliban will just sit and wait, and then pour it on as soon as we leave. It just makes no strategic sense.
Petraeus has a lot of work to do in turning around the war. There is alleviating the fears that Karzai has with this date, there is letting our troops fight the way they see fit and allowing them to win battles, there is dealing with Pakistan and ensuring they continue their fight, there is the training of the ANA and police so they can take control of the country, and all of this is dependent on changing that stupid date for withdrawal. Or Petraeus can keep his promise of defeat and go down with the ship. Only time will tell, and the clock is ticking. –Matt
——————————————————————
Secrets From Inside the Obama War Room
by Jonathan Alter
May 15, 2010
The first of 10 “AFPAK” meetings came on Sept. 13, when the president gathered 16 advisers in the Situation Room in the basement of the White House. This was to be the most methodical national-security decision in a generation. Deputy national-security adviser Tom Donilon had commissioned research that backed up an astonishing historical truth: neither the Vietnam War nor the Iraq War featured any key meetings where all the issues and assumptions were discussed by policymakers. In both cases the United States was sucked into war inch by inch.
The Obama administration was determined to change that. “For the past eight years, whatever the military asked for, they got,” Obama explained later. “My job was to slow things down.” The president had something precious in modern crisis management: time. “I had to put up with the ‘dithering’ arguments from Dick Cheney or others,” Obama said. “But as long as I wasn’t shaken by the political chatter, I had the time to work through all these issues and ask a bunch of tough questions and force people to sharpen their pencils until we arrived at the best possible solution.”