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"The more we know of Obama's views of the Afghan war, the less confidence he inspires," writes Gerson. Again, correct. Woodward's portrait of President Obama shows him possessed of an unusual admixture of hubris, inexperience, and naà ¯vetà ©.
The mix not only is Obama's personal Achilles heel; it is getting a lot of people killed and maimed. It is also lengthening the lines at "insurgent" recruiting stations and increasing the danger of terrorist attacks here at home.
Michael Gerson will not be the only one to see through Obama's obvious attempt to square a circle.
Woodward paints a personal portrait of presidential cynicism by describing a conversation between Obama and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, during which Graham asks if the July deadline is firm.
Obama is quoted in reply, "I have to say that." He then explains, "I can't let this be a war without end, and I can't lose the whole Democratic Party."
There is little doubt in my mind that Obama knows full well that the Afghanistan war is a fool's errand, and that the only way to end it is to disengage, rather than escalate. Yet he is convinced -- wrongly, I believe -- that the he has no real political alternative but to kowtow to the generals. [See Consortiumnews.com's "Hawks Box in Obama on Afghan War."]
Earning Disdain
Predictably, this behavior earns Obama disdain rather than respect from the top brass, who believe the President feels "intimidated" in their presence, as Gen. Stanley McChrystal is quoted as saying, according to Rolling Stone magazine earlier this year. Generals generally know there is a huge difference between being a mere politician and a real leader.
In Obama, they see a politician first and foremost, and have concluded that his overweening determination to appear strong on defense has the result of making him putty in their hands.
The generals are helped by the Fawning Corporate Media's (FCM) abnegation of its responsibility to explore and report critically on the occupation of Afghanistan. Instead, the FCM promotes almost sickening adulation of those senior officers who "wear the uniform," with row upon row of ribbons and medals, many of whom should be sacked for sending young troops into a war they know to be unwinnable.
Petraeus Surges
Gen. Petraeus is Exhibit A. In 2006, virtually all other generals, backed by then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group, favored shrinking the U.S. "footprint" in Iraq as the best route to reduce the death toll and to extricate American forces. They agreed that sending more U.S. troops to Iraq would do little good.
However, in late 2006, President George W. Bush feared losing a war on his watch. So, he dumped Rumsfeld, recruited the malleable Robert Gates as the new Defense secretary, and picked out the ambitious Petraeus to implement a "surge" of troops into Iraq.
Though the death toll for both Americans and Iraqis spiked in 2007, with about one thousand U.S. soldiers dying along with tens of thousands of Iraqis, eventually the violence abated, at least somewhat.
Well-informed military analysts credited a number of factors for bringing down the violence, including many that predated the surge. For instance, the Sunni disenchantment with al-Qaeda extremists and the U.S. military's decision to put many Sunni insurgents on the payroll occurred earlier in 2006.
So did the killing of al-Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and much of the de facto ethnic cleansing of the country as many Sunnis fled their former neighborhoods, turning Baghdad from a predominantly Sunni into a mostly Shia city. Despite the personal tragedies for individual Iraqis, the forced separation did cause the Sunni-vs.-Shiite violence to decline.
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