Obama stuffs the military

In what must rate of a stroke of political genius, Obama has seen off the challenge by the US military over Afghanistan and, by firing McChrystal and appointing his boss Gen David Petraeus, has dumped the problem back in their laps and told them to get on with it.

On the basis that there is nothing new under the sun, there must be a precedent for a field commander being fired and his boss being appointed to replace him, but such incidents are few and far between. However, few can have expected that Obama would take this option and, in the brief period while McChrystal's fate was in the balance, you did not see Petraeus's name in the ring.

What we have been seeing is a huge amount of thrashing about, as commentators struggle and largely fail to make sense of recent events, not realising that this was most likely a deliberate ploy by McChrystal to destabilise Obama and dump the blame for a failing campaign in the lap of the president.

As such, it is most unlikely that McChrystal's quite deliberate and studied coup de main was done without the knowledge and acquiescence (if not approval) of his boss.

By appointing Petraeus to take over from his uppity subordinate – effectively a demotion – Obama demonstrates the skills acquired and honed as a street-fighting Chicago politician. He has reasserted control over – as The Guardian puts it – a politicised military, with the generals out of control.

In so doing, he dumps responsibility for success in Afghanistan in the lap of the supposed architect of the campaign, leaving McChrystal isolated and irrelevant. The Army is still very much in the frame and Obama's message about "civilian control" could not have been clearer.

Hero of the Iraqi "surge" and a Bush appointee, Petraeus must now deliver the goods in Afghanistan or go under. His appointment, to a very great extent, insulates the president from the fray. The new chief is in the hot seat, and with him the military. The game has just changed, and taken on a whole new dimension.

Comment: Afghanistan thread

Dabbling in politics

A particularly appropriate observation found its way into the Small Wars Journal forum recently. "Never ask the guy in the fight what the most important objective is, because it will invariably be the guy he is fighting," it said. "Strategy must be derived by those removed from the current fight, otherwise it will likely be skewed more by 'urgency' rather than 'importance'."

The truth of that observation was never better demonstrated than by a flurry of media interest today – by The Times, amongst others – in the views of Staff Sergeant Kim Hughes, a 30-year-old bomb disposal specialist.

He had been asked by defence secretary Bob Ainsworth - who was visiting Afghanistan with home secretary Alan Johnson - what he needed most. "More troops on the ground," Hughes had replied. He said later: "We have lost two guys. More troops are needed on the ground but the same could be said for equipment."

This considered strategic perspective of course mirrors the "opinion" of Gen Stanley McChrystal and, if the Staff Sergeant's comments – or the media's treatment of them – triggered a certain weary irritation in the portals of Whitehall, this is nothing compared with the reaction McChrystal's politicking seems to have triggered in Washington.

According to The Daily Telegraph, the relationship between Obama and his errant general "has been put under severe strain", with the presidential advisors "shocked and angered" by the bluntness of McChrystal's speech in London. Some commentators regarded the general's London comments as verging on insubordination.

Bruce Ackerman, an expert on constitutional law at Yale University, said in the Washington Post: "As commanding general, McChrystal has no business making such public pronouncements." One adviser to the administration, however, said: "People aren't sure whether McChrystal is being naïve or an upstart. To my mind he doesn't seem ready for this." He added that it was highly unusual for a senior military officer to "pressure the president in public to adopt his strategy".

The general is certainly taking more than a little flak in Washington, with Eugene Robinson, an op-ed writer for The Washington Post taking him to task. He is entitled to his opinion about the best way forward, says Robinson. But he has no business conducting a public campaign to build support for his preferred option.

McChrystal's view, Robinson continues - that a strategy employing fewer resources, in pursuit of more limited goals, would be "short-sighted" - is something the White House needs to hear. He is, after all, the man Obama put in charge in Afghanistan, and it would be absurd not to take his analysis of the situation into account. But McChrystal is out of line in trying to sell his position publicly, as he did last week in a speech in London.

McChrystal, in his public advocacy for more troops, seemed to be trying to limit Obama's options. But what we want to achieve in Afghanistan is a political question, and we don't pay our generals to do politics. That's the job of the president and the Congress - and whether our elected leaders decide to pull out tomorrow or stay for 100 years, the generals' job is to make it happen.

For the record, adds Robinson, this would be my position even if McChrystal were arguing for an immediate pullout - or even if George W. Bush, rather than Obama, were the president whose authority was being undermined.

He then tells that, in October 2006, when the chief of staff of the British army said publicly that Britain should pull out of Iraq because the presence of foreign troops was fueling the insurgency - a view with which he wholeheartedly shared - he argued that he ought to be fired. Robinson wrote that he didn't like "active-duty generals dabbling in politics," even if he agreed with them. "If military officers want to devise and implement geopolitical strategy, they should leave their jobs and run for office."

In Britain, though, we not only seem to have Generals and Flight Lieutenants but now Staff Sergeants.

Privately, says Robinson, Obama needs to hear McChrystal's advice. Publicly, he needs to hear one simple phrase from the general: "Yes, Mr. President." US defence secretary Gates (pictured), it seems, also agrees, declaring that US military officers and civilians advising Obama on Afghanistan should keep their views private. "It is imperative that all of us taking part in these deliberations, civilians and military alike, provide our best advice to the president, candidly but privately," he says.

The same nostrum would not go amiss this side of the Atlantic.

COMMENT THREAD

The real debate emerges

On Afghanistan, the truth is that there are few differences between the two leaders [Brown and Cameron], says The Sunday Times. In fact, there are major differences – as we pointed out yesterday.

The Conservatives have very publicly bought-in to the McChrystal "strategy", agreeing (in principle) to more troops in theatre. The government is maintaining its more cautious "strategy first – then resources" stance. This leaves its options open, avoiding being left out on a limb if Obama comes up with a different strategy.

Quite how "political" the issue has become is brought home by two pieces in The Sunday Times. The first, from Christian Lamb, sketches out the political background, pointing out that there is now a clear divergence between Obama and McChrystal – something which the Conservatives have given no public signs of recognising.

The second piece is from columnist Andrew Sullivan, who underlines the difficulties president Obama faces in attempting to craft a strategy for the campaign in this troubled country.

"The near-impossible least-worst option remains maddeningly elusive," writes Sullivan. This is an Afghanistan after 30 years of violence, mayhem, brutality and anarchy. To believe that America can create a functioning, stable state in that context seems insane to him. Given America's fiscal crisis and profound public unease at deepening the commitment, a reckless bet on the future with a large increase in troops seems a definition of unwise.

He is worried about McChrystal's "all in or all out" analysis. It is not "quite right" he feels. Sketching out the consequences of both, Sullivan believes that, "In a moment of immense unpredictability and fluidity, it seems that muddling through for a while may be an unsatisfying but sensible option".

In support of this thesis, he cites Marc Lynch, "as shrewd a foreign policy analyst as exists in Washington," who argues: "Why choose between escalation or withdrawal at exactly the time when the political picture is at its least clear? Why not maintain a lousy Afghan government which doesn’t quite fall, keep the Taliban on the ropes without defeating it, cut deals where we can and try to figure out a strategy to deal with the Pakistan part, which all the smart set agrees is the real issue these days?"

Thus Lynch suggests focusing on applying the improved counterinsurgency tactics with available resources instead of focusing on more troops, If the American core objective in Afghanistan is to prevent its re-emergence as an al-Qaeda safe haven, or to prevent the Taleban from taking Kabul, those seem to be manageable at lower troop levels.

In other words, Sullivan avers, meticulously prepare for either the McChrystal counterinsurgency surge or a more low-key counterterrorism campaign. But right now, hold on to see what emerges. The time for a deep strategic call may not, in fact, be now. It will, for sure, be soon. But in wars and politics, timing is everything.

Where Sullivan may be being complacent though is in believing the Obama has time to play with. Separately reported by The Times are two incidents over the weekend in which ten US soldiers have been killed. They were stationed in remote outposts in the mountainous province of Nuristan, bordering on Pakistan and, in one of the incidents, where eight troops were killed, "scores" of insurgents are said to have stormed the outpost.

The presence of US soldiers is in part an implementation of Petraeus's "live amongst the people" doctrine, comprising the part of the "take and hold" strategy which McChrystal is advocating – and has been steadily rolled out since the arrival of fresh troop in May. Since then small packets of troops have been stationed, often in indefensible outposts throughout southern Afghanistan.

This is not the first time that relatively large numbers of US casualties have been taken in a single incident, with the New York Times currently reporting in the battle at Wannat in June 2008 when an outpost was almost overrun by 200 insurgents, costing nine American lives.

Time and again we are hearing that troop numbers are insufficient to complete the second half of the "take and hold" strategy. Having part implemented this strategy, McChrystal does not have enough resource to complete the next phase, leaving troops exposed and vulnerable. This situation is militarily and politically unsustainable.

There are already plans in place to withdraw garrisons from remote outposts in sparsely populated regions. These, in fact are already under way, where well-intentioned (or politically-driven) sallies into hostile territory are meeting with stiff resistance.

Under the current McChrystal "strategy", the plan is to concentrate troops in towns and cities, and therein lie the political fault-lines in Washington – as more will be needed than the current small-scale tactical withdrawals if massive reinforcements are not forthcoming.

Simon Tisdall writes in The Guardian of Kennedy and Vietnam parallels, and the challenge facing a young Democrat president. So, after a fleeting meeting between McChrystal and Obama – only the second time the pair have met – the political "game" is starting to be played for real.

Obama's national security adviser Gen James L Jones is now working to downplay the perceived importance of the McChrystal assessment, saying that it was just one part of a review of overall strategy that included such factors as a larger role for the Pakistani military and the integrity of the recent Afghan elections.

"It would be a mistake to underestimate the importance of other elements of the strategy," Gen Jones says, offering no endorsement of a recommendation for additional troops. He described McChrystal's recommendation as "his opinion" of "what he thinks his role within that strategy is." "The president should be presented with options, not just one fait accompli," he said. The general has been put back in his box. And now the real debate is getting under way – in Washington, if not London.

COMMENT THREAD

Time is not on our side

It was at the end of August, or so we are led to believe, that president Obama received McChrystal's Afghan assessment report yet only yesterday has the White House started in earnest its strategy review. This is being done at senior official level, taking in video conference discussions with McChrystal in Kabul, and the debate is joined today by Obama, alongside vice president Joe Biden and secretary Gates.

Reading the runes, Obama seemed to be moving towards favouring the counter-terrorism strategy when he spoke yesterday of "dismantling, disrupting, destroying the al Qaeda network" as the mission, without mentioning the Taleban.

Emerging as an influential voice in the debate is failed presidential candidate John Kerry, now Senate foreign relations committee chairman. Not only was he at the White House last week, meeting with the vice president, he has been given the opportunity to express his views in the Wall Street Journal, in an authored opinion piece headed somewhat contentiously: "Testing Afghanistan Assumptions".

Referring to the McChrystal report, Kerry declares: "Now, we in Congress have our own assignment: to test all of the underlying assumptions in Afghanistan and make sure they are the right ones before embarking on a new strategy." Never more was it clear that the McChrystal "strategy" is not a done deal, and there is to be much political bloodshed before a resolution is reached.

As might be expected, Kerry rehearses the issues, with particular reference to the "deeply flawed presidential election last month", then noting that the debate so far has focused on absolute numbers - how many U.S. and allied troops are required, how many Afghan soldiers and police do we need to train, how many more billions must we pour into that impoverished country?

But, says Kerry, all the numbers are meaningless if the goal is ambiguous or the strategy is wrong. Before we send more of our young men and women to this war, we need a fuller debate about what constitutes success in Afghanistan. We need a clearer understanding of what constitutes the right strategy to get us there. Ultimately, we need to understand, as Gen Colin Powell was fond of asking, "What's the exit strategy?" Or as Gen David Petraeus asked of Iraq, "How does it end?"

Behind all this though, is the ghost of Vietnam, and Kerry brings it to the fore. One of the lessons from Vietnam, he says, is that we should not commit troops to the battlefield without a clear understanding of what we expect them to accomplish, how long it will take, and how we maintain the consent of the American people. Otherwise, we risk bringing our troops home from a mission unachieved or poorly conceived.

Hinting then at what will be the Democrat line, Kerry goes on to note that the McChrystal assessment "offers no timetable or exit strategy, beyond warning that the next 12 months are critical." He does not offer an alternative, but the marker is there. If McChrystal gets what he wants, or part of it, there will most likely be strings. It would be unsurprising if this was not precisely what Kerry is hinting at – an exit strategy and a fixed timetable. For the moment though, it is "wait and see". The Senator wants Obama to be given time and space to "test every assumption and examine every option."

The longer he leaves it, though, the greater the cost to Obama. Opinion is hardening and the different factions are shaping up for the fight of the century, which will make the insurgency in Afghanistan look like a walk in the park.

On the one hand, he appears to have the support of Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Nato secretary-general, who met Obama yesterday (pictured). ''The first thing is not numbers,'' says Ramussen, ''I agree with President Obama in his approach: strategy first, then resources,'' he said.

One the other hand, the Republicans are scenting blood. Another failed presidential bidder, Senator John McCain, is backing McChrystal, declaring that "time is running short." He argues for the president to approve the call for additional troops. If Obama fails to do so, it would "put the United States in much greater danger." "Time is not on our side," McCain emphasises, "so we need a decision pretty quickly."

One can see a political strategy emerging here. McCain says he thinks the drawn-out debate over the Afghan war policy in the United States "may be perceived by some of our allies in Europe and Pakistan and that region as a bit of weakness." Obama is being positioned to come across as weak and indecisive. Whatever decision he comes up with, if he leaves it too long, that will be the impression which gains traction.

COMMENT THREAD

Descent into madness

Doug Beattie is back in print, this time with another book to sell. So, for a change, he offers a narrative of almost unremitting negativity, under the heading: "The descent of Britain's Afghan campaign into a Vietnam-style madness".

Doubtless, it is a good book – the last one was – but this is the same Doug Beattie who recently was telling us why we must hang in there and finish the job in Afghanistan. Reading his current account though – and indeed the first book – you cannot fail to come away with a sense of the utter futility of the campaign, to say nothing of strongly signalled presentiments of failure.

In assessing his call to finish the job, we called for strategy, not blind faith. Now, with the emergence of General McChrystal's assessment report, strategy is firmly on the agenda – in the US media, at least – turning a little-known solider into an instant hero, with earnest hagiographies in the likes of Newsweek.

Only gradually did it emerge that McChrystal was not so much offering a new strategy as a continuation of a strategy agreed in March by the incoming president Obama. That event was reinforced with 21,000 extra troops drafted in to take territory from the Taleban, the first of three phases labelled with the deceptively simple title of "take, hold and build".

Taking, though was the easier bit. To hold that territory requires a two-tier approach – providing coalition troops while expanding and training up the Afghan National Army which would eventually take over. That would require still more troops, even though Obama signalled as early as July that he "wasn't inclined" to send more combat troops to Afghanistan.

That may well have precipitated the "leak" of the assessment report to the Washington Post and the coordinated publicity campaign which was clearly aimed at bouncing Obama into agreeing to raise manpower levels, even though no formal request had then been made for extra troops.

Now, however, we learn that McChrystal has placed a formal bid with his Defense Department, in the upper range of expectations, at 40,000. The call is being backed by Britain's top general in Afghanistan – Lt-Gen Jim Dutton - in the hope that the British government will follow suit and send some more of its own.

Dutton tells The Times that victory was a matter of "straightforward force ratios". "If you want to achieve long-term stability, and therefore a lack of terrorism potential in an area, you need to be doing more than simply patrolling the skies," he says. "The ultimate answer to this problem is a stable democratic state of Afghanistan in which their own forces are capable of maintaining the rule of law and security."

Already, it has emerged that Obama was having second thoughts about precisely this "counterinsurgency" strategy and was considering an alternative "counter-terrorism" strategy, the so-called "whack-a-mole approach", achieved mainly by patrolling the skies with armed UAVs.

Next, though, we find out that Obama's March strategy review, which culminated in putting McChrystal into position, wasn't a strategy review after all. The decision to send 21,000 more troops, thought to be directed at implementing the strategy, was "made hurriedly within weeks of coming into office to stanch the tactical erosion on the ground and provide security during Afghan elections."

Through the good offices of vice-president Joseph Biden, we are now having the strategy review that we did not have in March. McChrystal's request for more troops will not even be put to the president until the review is completed, and the world marks time until a decision is made. Unsurprisingly, US defence secretary, Robert Gates, has now revealed that the review could take several more weeks.

On the other hand, examination of McChrystal's not-a-strategy shows it to be remarkably similar to Petraeus's "surge" template, which achieved some success in Iraq, although under very different conditions. Not least, in Iraq, the national army came of age and – albeit with considerable help – proved capable of taking the load. As regards the Afghan National Army, even the staid Jamestown Foundation has its doubts, while Captain's Journal has no doubts at all. The Afghan army is "horrible".

Perhaps conscious that relying on the Afghan army is not a quick-fix solution, secretary Gates has dismissed calls for a timetable for withdrawal. "The notion of timelines and exit strategies and so on would all be a strategic mistake," he says.

All these developments have left the UK rather out in the cold. UK commentators have tried to engage in the debate, but they are reporting rather than participating. There is no political traction here and the real debate is across the pond. By and large, therefore, our media confines itself to the only things it can do well, emoting, reporting on bickering generals and bitching about equipment shortfalls. Intelligent debate has become a rarity - nothing new there.

Thus, while Beattie writes of, "The descent of Britain's Afghan campaign into a Vietnam-style madness", the situation can be summed up more succinctly as simply a descent into madness. The Vietnam parallel is not necessary. Casualties will continue to mount, more attempts
will be made to sort out the election results – while Ban Ki-moon complains about "the level of uncertainty" - and the Taleban carries on causing havoc.

And madness will prevail.

COMMENT THREAD

A deadly delay

Gradually, the British media is absorbing the implications of the McChrystal assessment, and the political ramifications surrounding it, and we are beginning to see some in-depth reports.

The Times for instance, is running a six-part series on Afghanistan, the latest dealing with the battle for "hearts and minds" on the home front, picking up on a theme it rehearsed in July.

The biggest challenge for the government, says this paper, is not how to beat the Taleban but how to keep the public at home onside. People tend to support the Armed Forces whatever they do but if there is any perception that British troops are dying in Afghanistan for no good reason the tide of opinion will turn.

Keeping people "onside" requires, at its most basis, a government which is able to offer a clear strategic direction and an indication that progress is being made, at an acceptable cost, with some prospect of an end in sight.

Defence secretary Bob Ainsworth, agrees that the government has to make clear the real reason why we need to be in Afghanistan. First and foremost, he then says, we must get security right so that we can prevent Afghanistan from once again becoming a haven for terrorism.

Only then does he moves on to tell us that building the Afghan state - its education and health services, alternative livelihoods to drugs and a strong legal system - will give the people a better future than the one offered by the Taleban.

The problem with that is that Ainsworth does not make a clear causal link between his assertions. A "secure" Afghanistan, he asserts, is necessary to prevent Afghanistan from becoming a haven for terrorists. He then asserts that building the Afghan state will give people a "better future" than the one offered by the Taleban, but he does not tell us that this condition is necessary to defeat the Taleban. We are left to assume that, as indeed we have to assume that achieving this desirable condition is conditional on achieving security.

The sequential relationship between establishing security and then building the Afghan state, however, seems to have lodged as the prevailing paradigm, with the greater problem that we appear to be stuck in stage one, as yet unable to establish the security on which everything else depends.

However, it is now readily acknowledged that defeating the insurgent – in this case the Taleban – and thus achieving security, depends entirely on gaining the support of the people. Yet, to gain the support of the people, it is necessary to give people a "better future" which, under the prevailing paradigm, demands that security is first achieved.

Expressed thus, this is something of a self-defeating task, unless overwhelming force can be brought to bear over a very short period of time, thus to secure an area and allow rapid improvements to be implemented, all with the aim of convincing Afghans that there is a prospect of a "better future".

This, presumably – and, in fact, almost certainly – is what McChrystal aims to achieve through his assessment. And, while he has not yet formally asked for more troops, we learn from The Washington Post that he is about to do so. That request, though, will be made to the Department of Defense, which has indicated that it will not immediately forward it to the White House, pending the current strategic review which is being conducted by the president.

Here, one can understand the dilemma in the White House. There is absolutely no guarantee that the McChrystal plan – such that it is – will actually work, or indeed any indication that it has any chance of working. Based on the Iraqi "surge" concept, there is in fact every chance that it will not.

Thus, one can see the attractions of trimming back the ambitions, turning away from a counterinsurgency strategy, where the focus is on the people, to a counterterrorism strategy where the focus is on killing the enemy – in this case al Qaeda. Unfortunately, as Captain's Journal makes abundantly clear, that strategy is unlikely to work either.

Torn between two equally unattractive prospects, therefore, the response of the White House has been delay. Since late August when McChrystal delivered his report to the president, there has been no progress. No decisions have been made and there is no indication that one is forthcoming. A dangerous strategic vacuum is building up, where troops on the ground are marking time, waiting for a decision – and action – that they believe will enable them to make progress.

That delay is the worst of all possible worlds, and it is being noticed. Richard Norton-Taylor of The Guardian writes that Gordon Brown and, "less characteristically" (his words, not mine), Barack Obama appear irresponsibly indecisive. US and UK military chiefs are tearing their hair out at the inability of their political masters and civil agencies to get a grip on the Afghan conflict.

If the home front needs signs of direction, firm leadership and progress, this indecision simply reinforces the sense of drift. As casualties mount – as they doubtless will – the frustration and uncertainty may yet spill over into outright hostility to the war, culminating in demands for complete withdrawal.

We are, in effect, on the road to nowhere and while, generally – in road safety terms – we are told that "speed kills", on this particular road the greater danger might be delay. But if the wrong decision is also likely to have fatal consequences, there is a problem building up of alarming proportions. An immediate decision might rebuild public confidence in the short-term but the longer-term cost might be strategic failure, with catastrophic effects on public sentiment.

Perhaps the real problem is, in fact, the focus on strategy without due consideration for tactics. We will have a look at this in a future post.

COMMENT THREAD

Leaving it a bit late

It is the New York Times that is now telling us that Obama is exploring alternatives to a major troop increase in Afghanistan. The process includes considering a plan advocated by vice president Biden to scale back American forces and focus more on rooting out al Qaeda there and in Pakistan.

This amounts to a "wholesale reconsideration" of a strategy the president announced with fanfare just six months ago, helpfully summarised by Newsweek. That strategy involved defeating the insurgents, preventing Al Qaeda from re-establishing a sanctuary and working to set up a democratic and effective government.

Crucially, it also involved training Afghan forces to take over from US troops and coaxing the international community to give more help. There was also an added element, focusing on Pakistan - "assisting efforts to enhance civilian control and stable constitutional government in Pakistan and a vibrant economy that provides opportunities for the people of Pakistan."

In pursuit of the Afghan end of what became known as the AFPAK strategy, Obama agreed to despatch an additional 17,000 troops to the theatre and then another 4,000 to help train Afghan security forces. And it was that strategy which Gen McChrystal took as his brief, working to produce his "assessment" of how it should be implemented.

What has actually confused the issue is that McChrystal writes extensively about needing a new strategy. In fact, the strategy had already been determined. What he has offered is a "significant change in ... the way we think and operate."

As we know, the essence of this "significant change" is defined as "take, hold and build", the first step having been achieved in part with the 17,000 extra troops. But now the coalition forces have taken more territory, McChrystal finds – as he always would – that he needs more troops to hold it. The figure of 30-40,000 has been mentioned.

Now – or so it would seem – Obama is having to confront the inevitable consequence of a strategy defined last March, which effectively rubber-stamped what Bush had put in place, and is now having second thoughts. Thus do we learn that Obama met with his top advisers on 13 September to "begin chewing over the problem", only to find no consensus – in fact, quite the reverse. "There are a lot of competing views," said one official.

Major factors which have prompted the second thoughts, though, are deteriorating conditions on the ground, the messy and still unsettled outcome of the Afghan elections and McChrystal's own report. However, there is view that Obama might just be testing assumptions — and assuring liberals in his own party that he was not rushing into a further expansion of the war — before ultimately agreeing to additional troops.

This notwithstanding, the debate seems to have polarised into two separate camps, on the one hand a counterinsurgency strategy – on which basis McChrystal has been working - and, on the other, a focus on counterterrorism. The latter is not dissimilar to that advocated by George F. Will known as "offshore balancing" which, as the New York Times observes, "would turn the administration's current theory on its head'.

Given that in May, Gen David D McKiernan was replaced by Gen McChrystal, who was empowered to carry out the "new" strategy, McChrystal can perhaps feel aggrieved by now having his assessment second-guessed at this late stage, after so much effort and energy has gone into responding to the original brief and the strategy has been partially implemented.

The "game changer" though appears to have been the Afghan presidential election, which has undermined the administration's confidence that it had a reliable partner in Karzai. As Bruce O. Riedel – the man who led the AFPAK strategy review – observes, "A counterinsurgency strategy can only work if you have a credible and legitimate Afghan partner. That's in doubt now."

Obama, says the NYT, now has to reconcile past statements and policy with his current situation. And, says former Defense Secretary William S. Cohen, "The longer you wait, the harder it will be to reverse it." In fact, Obama has left it a bit late now to question the very basis on which McChrystal was working, when strategy issues should have been settled from the outset – as indeed they appeared to have been.

COMMENT THREAD