President Obama is set to make his decision "within days" about whether to send between 30,000 and 40,000 additional troops to Afghanistan to quell the Taliban-sponsored insurgency. General McChrystal asked for the troops almost three months ago.
From CNN:
"After completing a rigorous final meeting, President Obama has the information he wants and needs to make his decision and he will announce that decision within days," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.
The U.S. commander on the ground has asked for more troops and Republicans have criticized Obama for the drawn-out consideration process. The White House has defended its timetable, saying the president wants to get the decision right, not fast.
I'm sorry, Mr. Gibbs, but the correct decision would have been for Mr. Obama to support his commanding General, not dilly-dally over opinion polls and worry exit strategies. This is the war Mr. Obama inferred was the "right" war when he called Iraq the "wrong" war. Real leadership comes from making the right decision, but it also involves making those decisions quickly and convincing those around you to go with that decision. To dither and hedge as he has done was not leadership. Our soldiers are dying while the "Smartest President in History™" goes on golf outings and gives aid and comfort to the very people who are trying to kill us.
In my mind, the very first conversation should have gone like this:
McChrystal: Hello, Sir, I need more troops.
Obama: How many, General?
McChrystal: About 34,000.
Obama: When do you need them?
McChrystal: Yesterday.
Obama: What will happen if you don't get them?
McChrystal: We lose the war. Islamic extremism finds popular support and runs rampant throughout the Middle East and North Africa, possibly Europe and much of the rest of Asia. Wars break out along the islamic frontiers not unlike the Crusades. America becomes a second-rate political power in the style of the Byzantines and the Romans before them. China and Russia become the dominant military powers on Earth. Individual liberty dies for a generation, maybe more.
Obama: (after a moment's thought) You'll get your troops as soon as I can get them on the planes.
Unfortunately, that's not what happened.
A little history lesson: No one would argue that General Robert E. Lee, commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virigina in the American Civil War, was a poor leader, but he occasionally made wrong decisions. Lee was a proud man, and at times his pride clouded his judgement, hence his assault on Union General Meade's center at the battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania, which we now refer to as "Pickett's Charge." Meade's cautious nature allowed Lee to escape that mistake, but his aura of invincibility was forever shattered.
Lee would eventually lose his campaign, but only because the nature of warfare changed. No longer would the Napoleonic "chess-piece" style of battle be sufficient. Total War, which included the complete destruction of the enemy's every means of fighting a war and the annihilation of its combat units, would reign supreme for the next century. Lee almost never lost a battle, but Ulysses Grant, who took over the Union Army following Gettysburg, would smash the superbly-led but ill-equipped Confederacy to pieces.
Mr. Obama has shown himself to be neither Lee nor Grant. From the Civil War, his closest analogue might be General George B. McClellan. McClellan was practically beloved by the nation when he became the commander of the Union Army of the Potomac. He had won a couple of minor but highly publicized battles. He was handsome, dashing and brazenly outspoken about his ability to smash the Confederate armies to pieces. At Antietam, he stopped Lee's advance north, but failed to gain a decisive victory. Even though McClellan had ample opportunity to destroy Lee's army to and gain a decisive victory, his commanders lacked both the initiative and authority to do so. McClellan had chosen generals, like Ambrose Burnside, who would not act decisively and gave them insufficient orders and support to carry out the battle.
Barack Obama might hold Abraham Lincoln's position, but he clearly is not Lincoln. With Northern morale and support for the war sagging, George McClellan ran for President in 1864 on a platform ending the war through diplomacy if possible. In the end, Lincoln held on to the Presidency and the Union defeated the Confederacy. Had McClellan been elected, the outcome might have been very different. Where Lincoln was decisive, McClellan hedged, just like Obama. Where Lincoln desperately sought leaders with initiative, McClellan tended to choose men who would merely do his bidding. Where Lincoln sought complete victory against the Confederacy, McClellan beleived the war was lost, just like the Democrats.
The parallel is all the more interesting in that Lincoln, Bush and McCain were all Republicans while Obama is a Democrat, just like McClellan.
While the details are different, the main differences between now and then are that this war is being fought on the other side of the world and that the indecisive, dithering individual won the election. This has changed the nature of the war from one of victory over the enemy to a new strategy of figuring out how to get us out of the war without the appearance of losing.
Unfortunately, this is not the Vietnam War. The enemy doesn't simply want us off their turf as the Vietnamese did. They want us dead, every last one of us. They proved that when they blew up our embassies in Africa, and with every journalist or soldier beheaded on Al Jazeera. They proved that when they rammed three airliners into the Twin Towers and Pentagon and crashed a fourth into a field in Pennsylvania. This is not a war from which we can simply walk away. We tried to ignore this enemy, to treat them as mere criminals. We tried to largely let them be in their own land, to only strike at them when they struck at us. That strategy only emboldened them, leading eventually the the September 11 attacks and this war that for some reason we now struggle to define.
Taking time to make the right decision is one thing. To sit for three months while men die and their commander desperately asks for support is quite another. Instead of taking the initiative, Mr. Obama has allowed it to pass to the Taliban. Regaining the initiative will be difficult and costly, the toll including financial, political and human costs. While I have no doubt Mr. Obama is willing to spend the money, I do not believe this President is willing to bear the cost to his political capital.
That is why he's not a leader. Leadership, in part, means doing the thing you believe to be correct even though it may not be popular, then convincing others to go along with you. Mr. Obama is doing neither just so that he can hold on to the political capital he needs to pass his unpopular, unsound and expensive legislative agenda. He is playing political games with our soldiers lives.
Mr. Obama has talked from time to time about the legacy of Abraham Lincoln. Were it only that he had learned the lessons of that legacy, he might be a leader today.
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