President Obama is giving General McChrystal about three-quarters of what he wants — 30,000 of 40,000 troops. Thus it is appropriate that his speech was about three-quarters good.
The good parts were his signals of resolve and determination. He said, for example, that we have a “vital national interest” in Afghanistan and that we are there “to prevent a cancer from once again spreading through that country.” In the same vein, I loved his conclusion:
And the message that we send in the midst of these storms must be clear: that our cause is just, our resolve unwavering. We will go forward with the confidence that right makes might, and with the commitment to forge an America that is safer, a world that is more secure, and a future that represents not the deepest of fears but the highest of hopes.
One can easily imagine those words being spoken by Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush.
The problem is that there is plenty of reason to doubt Obama’s resolve in Afghanistan. On the plus side, he committed to sending more troops than some White House aides wanted, and he committed to sending them at once, refusing to draw out the process by announcing “off ramps” in the deployment plan or “benchmarks” that the Afghan government must meet before we send more forces.
But then he undercut some of the urgency he conveyed by pledging “to begin the transfer of our forces out of Afghanistan in July of 2011.” If this is such a vital national interest — and it is — why is our commitment so limited? How can he be so confident that the extra 30,000 troops — who will be lucky to arrive in their entirety by next summer — can accomplish their ambitious mission in just a year?
Obama tried to triangulate by adding: “Just as we have done in Iraq, we will execute this transition responsibly, taking into account conditions on the ground.” He also stressed that he would only begin a drawdown in July 2011, not end it; the pace and length of the exit remain to be determined. Thus he suggested that he might still walk away from the redeployment deadline, just as he walked away from the deadline to close Guantanamo. But the message that’s going out to the Taliban right now is that they just have to wait 18 months and the infidels will be out the door. That may not be accurate, but that’s what our enemies will hear.
The deadline is designed to placate the liberal base of the Democratic party. I predict that won’t work — the left-wing will be incensed by the extra troop deployment, regardless of the time line. So his gambit fails politically as well as strategically. That’s too bad, because otherwise his policy on Afghanistan is fairly sound.
