Gates Gets Off the Fence

In Washington’s ongoing debate about a troop surge in Afghanistan, the defense secretary has cautiously come down on Commanding General Stanley McChrystal’s side.

They’re already calling General Stanley McChrystal “Stanley McArthur” after the legendary commander during the Korean conflict. President Harry Truman fired McArthur for trying to impose his own strategy on military operations there because he disagreed with Truman’s limited war concept. That was something that threatened the whole principle of a civilian commander in chief over the military.

While McChrystal has stopped short of such insubordination, it’s nonetheless true that all the bad news emanating from Afghanistan, like the warnings that the war against the Taliban was in danger of failing, have come from McChrystal, who says a troop surge is the only possible solution.

But it’s not just another of those perennial struggles between the military and politicians; it’s also a to and fro at the core of Obama’s administration. Vice President Biden has been arguing against a troop surge for months, in favor of concentrating on Pakistan, which he believes is more important. Secretary of State Clinton and Defense Secretary Gates disagree with Biden, saying Afghanistan and Pakistan are two inseparable sides of the same coin.

The latest wrinkle is that Secretary Gates has at least partially emerged from his cover. Without totally exposing himself, he has forwarded McChrystal’s request for 40,000 additional troops to the president without his own recommendation. That’s considered more or less a tacit approval of the McChrystal request, but the squabble has already reached Congress. Head of the House Armed Services Committee, Democrat Ike Skelton, thinks Obama should follow the advice of his four-star commander, saying, “I think McChrystal is the [Ulysses] Grant of the day.” Grant, of course, was the commander who was victorious over the Confederacy during the American Civil War.

Carl Levin, powerful head of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has come out in a “yes and no” posture, saying that before we send in more American troops, “we should focus on enabling the Afghan army and police to secure the Afghan people.” Meanwhile, Obama seems to be going in an entirely different direction. In his vague way, he seems to want to end hostilities with the Taliban, or at least to considerably reduce them. He says the true danger comes from al-Qaeda in Pakistan and that the Taliban seeks only to regain dominance over Afghanistan, and therefore poses little threat to the United States.

Here’s where an exit strategy begins to make itself apparent. It might look something like this: U.S. troops in Afghanistan stop pursuing the Taliban and withdraw into their fortified compounds. From there, they fight al-Qaeda with Special Forces and unmanned aerial drones in Pakistan.

An individual in the White House (who wishes to remain anonymous) explains this change of philosophy as follows: “America and its interests abroad are being threatened by al-Qaeda; their agenda is one of death and destruction. Our intention is to destroy their leadership, infrastructure and war-making capabilities.”

But before we do that, he explains, we need to wait for the results of our “strategic review,” the systematic examination of our total strategy before we make further decisions. However, the consensus seems to tend toward a “minimalist” approach to Afghanistan strategy, as evidenced by the unusual measures taken by the usually reticent defense secretary, namely to forward General Stanley McChrystal’s request for a troop surge to the president. The unspoken message to Obama is, “Mr. President, I think you should listen to your man on the front lines.”

Obama might decide on a compromise solution: more troops for Afghanistan, but also increased action against Pakistan. In war, the path of being half-heartedly both for and against seldom results in victory. It is even less likely as America’s man in Kabul, President Karzai, tries to play both ends against the middle and work toward a deal with the Taliban. And they won’t be overjoyed in Islamabad if Obama seeks to broaden his war into Pakistan.

For Obama, Afghanistan has always been the “good” war and Iraq the “bad” war. Now it seems he would prefer to be rid of both of them, or, at the very least, to wind them down to the point that a great deal less American blood and money is spent on them. We wait anxiously to see what the Afghans and the Iraqis will have to say on the subject over the next few days.