horse of george

Former General who was once in charge of Afghanistan and presently is US ambassador to that wretched place has come forward - rather, it has been made known that he has strongly advised Obama that he thinks an upping of troops to be a bad idea. A resource I trust says, and I guess it makes sense, that the secret counsel was leaked by someone in the White House - not likely a military operative loyal to McChrystal and Petraeus out to get Eikenberry [the general] for opposing their plan - Eikenberry's position as ambassador now probably untenable since in leaked cables he shat all over Karzai in particular and the whole Afghan gov't in general - no, the suspicion is it was leaked by someone opposed to an Afghan surge who either wanted to put pressure on Obama or, more likely as far as I'm concerned, did so as means of preparing the ground of public opinion for a rejection of McChrystal and Petraeus by Obama. Regardless, the consensus seems to be that the leak will serve only to make a bad situation worse.

There's an alternative theory that Eikenberry leaked the material himself in order to short dick McChrystal - apparently they have a jaundiced relationship - and promote a plan of his own that accentuates more non-military aid to Afghanistan - in which case I guess he would be the one trying to sway Obama's position with public pressure, not some insider [I was thinking Rahm baby]. Remember, McChrystal, or someone close to him, leaked his recommendations in a similar attempt one assumes to pressure Obama - it appears someone figured turn around was fair play - but to what end and with what consequences?

If Obama himself is the source of this end around in attempt to curry favour with a public that may be troubled by a break with the generals - and if indeed the end result of the ploy is a bad situation has been sorely aggravated - well, then my prediction that Obama and the military could be on a collision course starts to look plausible. If, on the the other hand, Obama had nothing to do with it, that it was Eikenbarry acting alone or someone close to Obama [like Emanuel] who went rogue thinking it was a clever maneuver - does that then mean Obama has lost control of the process? I once hypothesized that I could see an over matched Obama bringing an academic-like inertia to difficult policy decisions, that when action and cold calculation were required regarding a decision fraught with peril and representing a threat to his ideological purity and the well crafted persona thereof, I speculated that faced with such a dilemma he would seek refuge in trying to reason away the unpleasantness, burying the uncompromising facts in endless debate until ambitious underlings stepped forward and settled the issue for him - could that be what's happening here?

Of course it's impossible to know if what's happening is part of a deliberate strategy or the result of a dysfunctional process - but reagrdless I think it's safe to say that increasingly eyes are narrowing and brows are furrowing on the military side of things.

Max Boot over at Contentions shares my bewilderment cum despair [rather more appropriately since he's someone and I'm not - I share his]:

One would think that the merits of this position would have been hashed out long ago (like, say, back in March, when the results of the last Afghan policy review were announced) and that President Obama would have concluded by now that we can’t simply write off Afghanistan because of the “corruption and ineffectiveness” of its government. But, no, Eikenberry’s cables seem to have landed with the impact of a mortar round in the White House and, if leaks are to believed, they have further reinforced the president’s tendency toward hesitation and doubt.
It does not exactly inspire confidence to read this account of the latest NSC meeting, from the New York Times:

A central focus of Mr. Obama’s questions, officials said, was how long it would take to see results and be able to withdraw.
“He wants to know where the off-ramps are,” one official said.

So the president is already looking to leave Afghanistan before he has even committed more forces? He’s more interested in an exit strategy than a strategy for success? What a terrible message to send to our troops and what a heartening message to send to our enemies.

It’s hard to know, of course, if this is an accurate reflection of what the man in the Oval Office is thinking — or simply a reflection of what the aides who are providing all these quotes for the media are thinking. Whatever the case, this bespeaks an extraordinarily chaotic and undisciplined White House decision-making process, with the president’s most senior advisers playing out their disagreements in public even after Gen. Stanley McChrystal had been chastised for making his own views known.