In the past few weeks, the right has made a concerted effort to create the impression that President Obama is ignoring Gen. McChrystal and his recommendations regarding the war in Afghanistan. At the same time, they don't seem to be listening very carefully to McChrystal -- focusing solely on the issue of whether or not the president, like his predecessor, will simply choose to send more troops without much forethought.
Many on the right seem content to ignore everything McChrystal says other than his recommendation that more troops be sent -- demanding that McChystal "unleash" American troops on the Afghans rather than follow the very counterinsurgency strategy McChrystal says is key to success in Afghanistan. The troop escalation they're fine with. But because a big part of COIN is minimizing civilian casualties, they are reflexively opposed to it. In the past few weeks, Byron York demanded that Obama "let U.S. be warriors," Andy McCarthy proclaimed COIN "the unlikeliest of social-engineering experiments" (liberalism as military strategy!) and attacked McChrystal as "more of the academic than the warrior" for his observation, given in the strategic assessment "that we run the risk of strategic defeat by pursuing tactical wins that cause civilian casualties or unnecessary collateral damage." To my knowledge, McCarthy has no record of military service.
This is Cheneyism, self-gratification masquerading as sacrifice and the courage to tell "hard truths." The Cheney right sees any course of action that would inflict maximum pain on those they deem responsible for Islamic terrorism as the correct one -- and like al-Qaeda, there are no "innocents" to speak of among those they associate with the enemy -- so the proper course of action is always the most brutal, whether it's torture or going on a Soviet-style rampage in Afghanistan -- that turned out well for them, didn't it?
At any rate, a big part of the problem is the very public debate over strategy. While I agree with Spencer Ackerman that the rifts between McChrystal and Obama are overstated, if one exists at all (Obama picked McChrystal, he knew McChrystal would recommend COIN and troop increases, and if he wasn't seriously considering both, he would not have picked him in the first place), I also agree with Bruce Ackerman and Michael Cohen that generals shouldn't be publicly lobbying for their preferred strategy. Unfortunately for the Obama administration, because of the way the Iraq War was handled, we've gotten used to generals being "whistleblowers" in a sense -- with the right attempting to place McChrystal where Shinseki once stood.
Without a legitimate Afghan government, the COIN strategy cannot succeed, so it's best that the administration consider its options very carefully, given at the moment, there isn't one. However, the administration's mishandling of its own internal divisions has been counterproductive in terms of achieving that goal.
UPDATE: I should clarify: I don't think it's bad that there's a public debate over strategy, I think it's bad that debate is taking place within the context of infighting within the administration, rather than the merits and flaws of a given strategy. In other words, I think it's bad that the personal disagreements within the administration are being aired so publicly, not that we as a nation are having a very important conversation about what we should be doing there.
-- A. Serwer
