Barack Obama is doing some serious publicity on his war plans with a Times-op-ed-stump-speech double header. Though he didn't really present any new ideas, the bullet points (16-month Iraq withdrawal timetable with "tactical adjustments" as needed, building up an Iraqi security force, refocusing U.S. military strategy around Afghanistan) offer a window into how the candidate might handle (and publicly present) military strategy.
Marc Ambinder at the Atlantic reads between the soundbites in Obama's op-ed and teases out some hypothetical snags:
"There's still some wiggle room here. Obama writes that he'd ask commanders for advice about where to withdraw troops first and 'would consult with commanders on the ground and the Iraqi government to ensure that our troops were redeployed safely, and our interests protected. We would move them from secure areas first and volatile areas later.'..."In practice, this would mean that combat troops would remain in volatile areas much longer than those who now patrol stable areas. Left unanswered is what would happen if the ground commanders urged Obama to keep troops in volatile areas for longer than a year -- or what would happen if Obama began to withdraw troops at one to two brigades per month, and his commanders asked him to keep a brigade in place for an extra two or three months -- or what would happen if violence erupted in places the U.S. recently evacuated -- or whether Obama's residual force would be supplemented with brigades transferred from other parts of the country."
Aside from worst-case scenarios, even the current situation on the ground reveals some possible potholes in Obama's exit path. According to a Government Accountability Office investigation, the Pentagon recently reported that
"the number of Iraqi units capable of performing operations without U.S. assistance has remained at about 10 percent. Several factors have complicated the development of capable security forces, including the lack of a single unified force, sectarian and militia influences, and continued dependence on U.S. and coalition forces."
Juan Cole at Informed Comment questions Obama's idea to leave a small deployment of U.S. forces in Iraq to battle "Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia":
"That suggestion is not plausible for several reasons. If there is only a small force in the country, who will rescue them if their helicopter gets shot down or they are ambushed and besieged? Then, how would a small American unit be any good against a terrorist organization operating in remote parts of Sunni Iraq? They don't know Arabic, can't hope for really good intelligence from locals, etc. Wouldn't it be more efficient to let the Special Police Commandos of the Iraqi Interior Ministry take care of this sort of thing? By the way, no one seems to be calling themselves 'al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia' any more on the jihadi bulletin boards. The main fundamentalist vigilante group is the 'Islamic State of Iraq.'"
Under a new administration, Cole says, as soon as the U.S. moves toward a pullout, an emboldened Iraqi government will not respond kindly to any American military presence: "It will be over with by then. Iraqis want their sovereignty back. The way to get out of Iraq is to get out of Iraq."
And once we're out of Iraq... onto Afghanistan? Some balk at the idea of shuffling soldiers from Iraq's battlefields to Afghanistan's arguably more deadly and politically complex terrain.
In recent months, deaths of American soldiers and allies in Afghanistan have outpaced those in Iraq, while the civilian deaths are up compared to previous years. The Times quotes Gen. David D. McKiernan of the International Security Assistance Force: "the viable outcome in Afghanistan to a large degree is dependent on some outcome in Pakistan with these tribal areas. That is a problem that is not getting better with time.”
Would it get better if the United States were to plunk down a few more combat brigades?
Reports from federal researchers underscore Afghanistan's predicament. The country's security forces, like Iraq's, appear to be deeply ill-prepared to independently sustain themselves strategically or operationally. Plans to build up the country's basic infrastructure with international cooperation have been lagging for years.
Seeing Afghanistan as a minefield of tribal conflict, Cole comments that "Afghanistan is far more unwinnable even than Iraq"--and besides, the strife is dominated not by al-Qaeda but by internal politics.
But Kevin Drum at the Washington Monthly's Political Animal says that whether or not Afghanistan is an al-Qaeda/Taliban hotbed, if the U.S. military pulled out:
"...we'd certainly be giving both the Taliban and al-Qaeda far more freedom of movement than they currently have. On the other hand... we don't have much of a strategy for going after them there — regardless of how many troops we have available. So we're stuck: we can't go forward and we can't go back. We've been slowly but continually increasing our presence in Afghanistan for the past five years, and all it's gotten us is steadily less control of the country and a steadily higher body count."
Speaking of being stuck, while the media buzzes around Obama's military plans, news has surfaced that the current administration's resistance to a time-specific Iraq withdrawal plan has led to an impasse in the contentious negotiations over a "status of forces" agreement .
With officials gridlocked over the U.S. role in Iraq and Iraqis growing increasingly bitter about the occupation, the clock is ticking for the next president... with or without a timetable.
Comments (8)
If Obama is elected, I am quitting ... I will not serve under he that did not serve.
Obama, the master planner. Makes a plan first, and then goes out to find out the facts. He'll fit right into the Washington elite. Frightening naiveté.
Will he change those 'boots' on a weekly basis?
Um, David - what will you be quitting, exactly? If it's the armed forces, you ARE currently serving under those who did not serve.
If you've PAID ATTENTION you should've noticed the non-service and economy-killing corruption of the Bush-Cheney government whose mission accomplished is to FATTEN BOTTOM LINES of Big Oil and corrupt profiteering corporations who take your tax money and run. They get gov't contracts and subsidies, and you're paying for it!
Obama is a take-charge guy who can do the job of President of the USA.
He isn't someone's prop or fake store front the way Bush is to his handler Cheney. Theirs is the sickest gov't relationship in our history and a huge disgrace to the citizens of our country, our troops and all those who died and suffer from the for-profit Iraq war.
Darker, I don't disagree that Bush - Cheney have been tools used by their big business friends to dole out favors that have enriched a corporate few at the expense of many. He is exactly the opposite of what his voting base thought they were voting for. But you haven't PAID ATTENTION if you haven't noticed that Obama is right out with the fact that he intends to build a bigger, more expensive government still. It's been my experience that big government isn't the answer to almost every problem.
The fact that he's an Afro-centric socialist who says in his own book that if push comes to shove he'll side with the Muslims should however be something that every American is concerned about. I would vote for ANYBODY ELSE before voting for Obama. He's an elegant speaker and makes a great candidate, but his backers and ideas are dangerous.
Afganistan is the graveyard of Empires. There will never be a military solution. If the US wants to eliminate terrorism, it should build schools, hospitals and other infrastructure. Not drop more bombs.
In the 1950s, in the wake of Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” plan, Pakistan obtained a 125 megawatt heavy-water reactor from Canada. After India’s first atomic test in May 1974, Pakistan immediately sought to catch up by attempting to purchase a reprocessing plant from France. After France declined due to U.S. resistance, Pakistan began to assemble a uranium enrichment plant via materials from the black market and technology smuggled through A.Q. Khan. In 1976 and 1977, two amendments to the Foreign Assistance Act were passed, prohibiting American aid to countries pursuing either reprocessing or enrichment capabilities for nuclear weapons programs.
These two, the Symington and Glenn Amendments, were passed in response to Pakistan’s efforts to achieve nuclear weapons capability; but to little avail. Washington’s cool relations with Islamabad soon improved. During the Reagan administration, the US turned a blind eye to Pakistan’s nuclear weapon’s program. In return for Pakistan’s cooperation and assistance in the mujahideen’s war against Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the Reagan administration awarded Pakistan with the third largest economic and military aid package after Israel and Egypt. Despite the Pressler Amendment, which made US aid contingent upon the Reagan administration’s annual confirmation that Pakistan was not pursuing nuclear weapons capability, Reagan’s “laissez-faire” approach to Pakistan’s nuclear program seriously aided the proliferation issues that we face today.
Not only did Pakistan continue to develop its own nuclear weapons program, but A.Q. Khan was instrumental in proliferating nuclear technology to other countries as well. Further, Pakistan’s progress toward nuclear capability led to India’s return to its own pursuit of nuclear weapons, an endeavor it had given up after its initial test in 1974. In 1998, both countries had tested nuclear weapons. A uranium-based nuclear device in Pakistan; and a plutonium-based device in India.
Over the years of America's on again- off again support of Pakistan, Musharraf continues to be skeptical of his American allies. In 2002 he is reported to have told a British official that his “great concern is that one day the United States is going to desert me. They always desert their friends.” Musharraf was referring to Viet Nam, Lebanon, Somalia ... etc., etc., etc.,
Taking the war to Pakistan is perhaps the most foolish thing America can do. Obama is not the first to suggest it, and we already have sufficient evidence of the potentially negative repercussions of such an action. On January 13, 2006, the United States launched a missile strike on the village of Damadola, Pakistan. Rather than kill the targeted Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda’s deputy leader, the strike instead slaughtered 17 locals. This only served to further weaken the Musharraf government and further destabilize the entire area. In a nuclear state like Pakistan, this was not only unfortunate, it was outright stupid. Pakistan has 160 million Arabs (better than half of the population of the entire Arab world). Pakistan also has the support of China and a nuclear arsenal.
I predict that America’s military action in the Middle East will enter the canons of history alongside Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the Holocaust, in kind if not in degree. The Bush administration’s war on terror marks the age in which America has again crossed a line that many argue should never be crossed. Call it preemption, preventive war, the war on terror, or whatever you like; there is a sense that we have again unleashed a force that, like a boom-a-rang, at some point has to come back to us. The Bush administration argues that American military intervention in the Middle East is purely in self-defense. Others argue that it is pure aggression. The consensus is equally as torn over its impact on international terrorism. Is America truly deterring future terrorists with its actions? Or is it, in fact, aiding the recruitment of more terrorists?
The last thing the United States should do at this point and time is to violate yet another state’s sovereignty. Beyond being wrong, it just isn't very smart. We all agree that slavery in this country was wrong; as was the decimation of the Native American populations. We all agree that the Holocaust and several other acts of genocide in the twentieth century were wrong. So when will we finally admit that American military intervention in the Middle East is wrong as well?