Neither of the candidates was coming to grips with the dilemma the US and NATO face in Afghanistan. McCain seems actually little interested in the problem in this interview. The Iraq War seems to be his chance to refight the Vietnam War. He seems to think that The Surge is a magic bullet, since he has decided it is "a winning strategy" in Iraq.
McCain does say he expects more troops from "our allies", presumably the NATO countries that are already engaged. But both candidates envisioned increasing US troops levels in Afghanistan as troops are drawn down from Iraq. McCain is a bit cagier on the latter, because he's not really committed to drawing down troops from Iraq: "A lot of that [additional US troops for Afghanistan] will probably come when we draw down in Iraq. And we are drawing down, and we are succeeding, and we are winning." (my emphasis)
Obama makes a similar point, but with more substance:
But in the absence of some additional U.S. troops, I think we’re going to continue to see our policy drift. Now, obviously it is tough to get more troops in Afghanistan so long as we’ve got the number of brigades deployed in Iraq that we do. This fits with my larger strategic belief that a phased withdrawal in Iraq, where we hand over more responsibility to the Iraqi government, push them harder on political reconciliation, expect more from them in terms of spending their money on reconstruction in Iraq, all can facilitate a greater focus on Afghanistan.Obama here is calling out the cheerleaders for The Surge, aka, the McCain escalation, to put up or shut up. If The Surge has been the fantastic success that McCain says it is, then let's start the US withdrawal.
I’ve said in the past the work that our troops have done in Iraq is extraordinary. Violence is down. (Iraq) Prime Minister (Nouri) al-Maliki has signaled a greater interest in taking on responsibility, and the assessment I got from commanders there is that although Iraqi forces still need support, they are increasingly taking the lead. In those circumstances, for us to begin a careful, phased withdrawal, starting with those areas that we have clearly secured the area, and then eventually moving to those areas that are still posing problems, that is how we’re going to free up the kinds of troops we need in Afghanistan.
Obama talks about needing in Afghanistan "enough non-combatants who are in the field helping to, essentially, build a state and build a country". To think that the United States primarily on its own is going to build a state for Afghanistan is an illusion. We could hypothesize circumstances in which Afghanistan would welcome a massive international aid effort.
But in the real existing conflict, nation-building in Afghanistan is not primarily a project for the United States. The experience of Kosovo, a much more militarily permissive environment and a European country (though mostly Muslim) should be a cautionary example. The outcome of NATO nation-building there is ambiguous. And it has required a continuing military commitment that is now in its eighth year, with no end in sight.
If there are redeeming features in Obama's position on Afghanistan, in this interview he shows that he understands that the problems in Afghanistan are intimately connected with Pakistan. And he recognizes that the US needs "a more comprehensive focus on what I consider to be the central front on terrorism", the latter seeming in this interview to refer to Afghanistan-Pakistan.
The political discussion of the Afghanistan War in the US is severely impoverished. Afghanistan has become the symbolic "good war" in contrast to the "bad war" in Iraq. But it's critical for the US to recognize that US involvement in protracted wars like these is in itself a problem.
And the notion that the US can go into a South Asian country like Afghanistan and build a model government is hardly more than a variation on the classic notions of European colonialism and the American colonial policy in the Philippines. It's just not realistic in today's world, at least not at any price that the US public is willing to pay. As we see, our war-loving Republicans aren't asking for any sacrifice from anyone but the volunteer armed forces for these supposedly vital missions.
Even fighting a successful counterinsurgency requires a reasonably stable government in the country with which the US can ally. The Karzai regime has been in office now for seven years and hasn't come close to establishing its authority even in a majority of their own territory. It's worth remembering that South Vietnam had a native government that, despite its narrow social base and its massive corruption and incompetence, was a far stronger partner than the Karzai government is or can ever reasonably expect to be, based on the experience to date.
Both candidates pledge an increase the size of the armed forces. But the difference in what they say about it illustrates the risks of doing so. Obama specifically says that the stop-loss procedure should be minimized to real emergency situations and that the National Guards domestic readiness needs to be restored. Both of those would require more soldiers to achieve the current level of battlefield staffing. McCain also talks about reducing stop-loss. But his interest in having more soldiers seems more related to all those other wars he looks forward to fighting:
[McCain] It’s something that we have to understand that this type of warfare [as in Iraq and Afghanistan] imposes enormous strains on people.This is something different than saying that the US forces need to retain some kind of counterinsurgency capability.
Q: And you don’t see any indications that we won’t be facing this kind of warfare for years to come.
I think this kind of warfare is a very typical kind of conflict we’re going to be in. Hopefully, we will not screw it up the way Rumsfeld did, so that the cost of winning is less in a whole variety of ways. [my emphasis]
In these interviews, neither candidate addresses the role of mercenaries/contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is a subject that need far more official attention and regulation.
Both say how committed they are to good health care for veterans, although again Obama seems more aware of and engaged with the kinds of programs he wants to provide. Here is another cautionary warning for the future. There are all kinds of ways that Democrats and Republicans can find to make "bipartisan" agreement on increased military spending. But when it comes to actually killing a worse-than-useless boondoggle weapons system like "missile defense", that's a whole different story. Companies with well-paid lobbyists lose money when military programs are reduced, even though a smaller force would be far more appropriate to the United States' real security needs.
Finally, it's worth noting the differences that existed on the two candidates' positions on Iraq. Even though I worried that Obama wouldn't stress the Iraq War as an issue enough, polling showed that voters had a clear sense that he favored getting out of Iraq (the overwhelming popular position) and McCain didn't. So I guess he got his position across well enough!
McCain in his interview is highly reluctant to talk about a withdrawal from Iraq:
So I think that will be a subject of negotiations between two sovereign nations. But the important thing is that we have succeeded. If we have been driven out, we would have, in my view, been at a very great risk of a war in returning. So the important thing is that the future is now one where we have different options.It's a sign of how numbed our sad excuse for a "press corps" have become to war propaganda that a statement like McCain's that we were clearly losing the Iraq War in 2006 (before The Surge) doesn't seem to strike them as anything that needs to be challenged. In fact, war supporters in 2006 were blasting those war critics who said we were losing as defeatists and worse. I don't have immediate access to Lexus/Nexus. But I sure don't remember that bold Maverick McCain saying in real time that we were losing in Iraq.
Before we started the surge, we were losing the war. We were losing, and we were going to leave in defeat. And that would have been catastrophic for the United States’ national security, both in Iraq, the region and Afghanistan. So we will work out, I’m sure, those arrangements with the Iraqi government.
Every life is precious. Every wound is grievous. And we mourn for any life that is sacrificed. But the fact is the month of July was the lowest number of casualties since the war began. It wasn’t an accident. It was bought at great sacrifice of American blood and treasure.
We cannot, cannot lose those gains which we have made at such great sacrifice by embarking on what (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs) Adm. (Michael) Mullen has said is “a very dangerous course of action” which is still advocated by Sen. (Barack) Obama: dates for withdrawal. We’ve seen by the massive suicide bombings that al-Qaida and other jihadists are still capable of doing some very bad things.
It's also worth noting that McCain's maudlin, "Every life is precious. Every wound is grievous. And we mourn for any life that is sacrificed", is stock phraseology. What he says immediately following says much more, "But..."
Obama here talks about leaving a residual force in Iraq. But the way he describes it hear makes it sound minimal:
What I’ve said is that we need a residual force to start with. So, without putting a precise number or a precise time frame, I’ve set a series of missions that we’re going to have to continue to perform for a decent stretch of time.Keeping troops to protect the embassy almost goes without saying. Although the embassy that Cheney and Bush have constructed looks more like a viceregal headquarters for "regime change" in the Middle East than a normal embassy.
We’re going to have to continue to provide logistical and intelligence support to the Iraqi military. We’re going to have to continue to provide training to the Iraqi military. We are going to have to continue to protect our diplomatic forces, our civilians on the ground in Iraq. Our embassy, we’ve got to protect. And, I believe we’re going to have to continue to have a counter-terrorism strike force, if not directly inside of Iraq then certainly in the region, that can provide insurance against any resurgence of either Al Qaida activity inside of Iraq or serious, destabilizing violence inside of Iraq.
Those are all tasks that we’re still going to have to perform, and that means a certain number of troops. What those troops would be to accomplish those missions, I would leave up to the commanders, or I would at least consult closely with commanders in order to achieve the goals.
I still think that the Republicans won't be showing a lot of "bipartisan" goodwill in attacking him every step of the way over his Iraq and Afghanistan policies, whatever they turn out to be once he takes office.
Tags: afghanistan war, barack obama, iraq war, mccain
No comments:
Post a Comment