Posted by
Michael Goodell on Wednesday, November 25, 2009 1:48:25 PM
www.mlgoodell.webs.com
Reports are circulating that President Barack Obama (D-Chi) has decided to approve the deployment of an additional 34,000 troops in Afghanistan. Though on the face of it this is a refreshing show of strength and character by the Nobel Peace Prize winner, I would like to be the first to announce that the surge is not working. In fact, I will go so far as to declare it is a failure.
You may recall that this was the uniform response of the loyal opposition to the troop surge in Iraq. Everyone from Nancy Pelosi to Harry Reid was quick to call that surge a failure, before the troops were even in place. Our current Secretary of State went so far as to call Gen. David Petraeus a liar when he gave a detailed briefing of how the surge was working.
So even though the first troops aren’t scheduled to arrive in country before next March, it isn’t too early to call it a failure. The timing is instructive. Eight months after Gen. Stanley McChrystal stated the urgent need for quick action, the first troops will begin to arrive. The deployment is scheduled to take nine months.
However, beginning in June, well before the bulk of the troops are in place, the administration will explore “off ramps,” studying benchmarks which will determine whether to halt deployments, adopt a more limited strategy, or “begin looking very quickly at exiting.” In other words, at the same stage of deployment which led Obama himself to declare the Iraqi surge a failure, he and his advisors will try to determine whether the Afghan surge is successful.
This is actually a brilliant strategy. It will mollify the antiwar left, revitalizing the base in time for the 2010 elections. It will enable Obama to appear tough, willing to make the tough decisions. It will show him to have a realistic view of the world, and of the use of American power. It will also allow him to finesse the hawkish words he employed back when he was using Afghanistan as a Bush-battering cudgel. He will be able to take ownership of the war, and end it.
By next June, having reviewed the situation on the ground and finding it still flawed, he can strike a statesmanlike pose and announce “Despite the deployment of additional troops, the situation in Afghanistan has continued to deteriorate. I cannot in good faith continue to risk the lives of the men and women of the Armed Forces in pursuit of a failed policy.”
It will be especially gratifying for him to add, “There was a time when this strategy could have succeeded. That time was 2003. Our failure to do the right thing then means that doing it now is the wrong thing. Therefore I am ordering the immediate withdrawal of all US forces from Afghanistan.”
He might, for good measure, consider quoting that great statesman John Kerry, “How can you ask a soldier to be the last man to die for a mistake?”
For all those reasons, I am happy to get out in front on this one. Again, the surge isn’t working.