Yesterday, torture advocate Dick Cheney emerged to accept an award from the Center for Security Policy, and gave a speech blasting the Obama administration for "dithering" on Afghanistan, saying, "Signals of indecision out of Washington hurt our allies and embolden our adversaries."
Cheney said the Obama administration seems to be pulling back and blaming others for its own failure to implement the strategy it had embraced earlier in the year.
"The White House must stop dithering while America's armed forces are in danger," the former vice president said. "It's time for President Obama to do what it takes to win a war he has repeatedly and rightly called a war of necessity."
The Obama administration raised troop levels in Afghanistan and increased drone strikes in the region (whether one agrees with those choices or not) -- to the extent that they haven't implemented a new strategy, they've been following the one the Bush administration put in place for the past eight years give or take. So Cheney is basically admitting that the Bush administration strategy was itself "dithering," which doesn't seem to be a strong point from which to launch criticism. Cheney claims the Bush administration conducted its own strategy review before they left office that had similar results, but that just seems to bolster my above point: The Bush administration implemented a strategy of "dithering" in Afghanistan for years, and now that he's out of office, Cheney wants to lecture the Obama administration on expediency.
Setting aside the fact that a domestic opponent accusing the president of being weak would have been the height of treason in the Bush years (remember the phrase "giving aid and comfort to the enemy"?) -- holding off until it's clear what the U.S. has to work with in terms of a local partner in Afghanistan is key to deciding on a strategy. Even most counterinsurgency advocates concede that COIN can't work without a legitimate government to defend.
-- A. Serwer
