Barack Obama has presented a well-reasoned, closely argued case for his decision to escalate the war in Afghanistan. He delivered the message that Afghanistan would be left to Afghans, that the US would help in developing the country, and that the US would include Pakistan in its strategy. He included the NATO allies in his plans and exhortations. He properly cited the 9/11 attacks and other al Qaeda attacks as a casus belli that reminded the world of the rationale for the war in the first place.
The President also addressed some criticisms: that Afghanistan resembles Vietnam, that the status quo was sufficient, and that an open-ended commitment would be preferable to a timetable. He placed the war in the broader context of governing, including the economic crisis we currently face and intensifying international economic competition. He implicitly criticized the Bush administration for its irresponsible and dishonest budgeting for the wars. He made clear his commitment to building our own country, as well as on taking the long view of national security. He included other security policies, including nuclear weapons and the role of diplomacy.
The President made a clear and compelling case for his decision to send troops to Iraq Afghanistan [Freudian slip]. Details were somewhat lacking, however, and in those details important questions still lurk.
1. How are we going to pay for the war? Obama made a commitment to transparent budgeting, but this says little. Are we going to continue to borrow to fight? Are we going to sacrifice butter for guns? Is the defense budget going to be cut elsewhere to pay for war costs? Will the President support a war surtax? Transparently borrowing money is not different from surreptitiously borrowing it, when you come right down to it. What will the president propose?
2. What lessons will we learn from Vietnam? The president's rejection of the Vietnam comparison was superficial and ignored the many obvious parallels. He will be waging a long war without broad domestic support. We will apparently be following an urban-based strategy in a largely rural country. We have no real control over a neighboring refuge for our opponents. We have not decided how to pay for the war. All these parallels to Vietnam are close and have gone unanswered by tonight's speech.
3. How will the military be sustained? He spoke to an audience of fresh cannon fodder, but most of the military has had multiple combat deployments in the past eight years, and we have no new divisions to relieve them. Will the military be expanded? What if conditions on the ground don't permit his optimistic withdrawal timeline? How is the military not to be broken?
4. Will we arbitrate the Afghan civil war or will we champion one side? Matthew Hoh, who recently resigned his Afghan post, has repeatedly pointed out correctly that the Afghan conflict is in reality a continuation of a 30 year civil war basically between various Pashtun factions on the one side and other ethnic groups from the north, loosely allied on the other. We are currently on the side of the northerners by virtue of fighting the Taliban, current champions of the Pashtun half of the country. Hoh argues that we need a political settlement of the civil war to end the conflict. Obama did not address this central conception of the Afghan conflict tonight, but kept the American-centric view of us vs. the Terrrists.
I am concerned by the lack of specificity in addressing these vitally important questions, and am thus unsatisfied by the president's case. Unless these questions are answered in coming days, I fear that the country will not come around to the president's side. Without a more realistic view of the conflict I don't know how he will find a winning strategy.
What were your reactions?