As then Senator Barack Obama campaigned for the American Presidency he seemed to understand well enough that the war in Iraq had become a millstone around President George Bush’s neck, in much the same way as, in the mid-1960’s an inherited war in Vietnam put Democratic President Lyndon Johnson’s administration in jeopardy, eventually forcing the President to declare that he would not seek re-election. In both cases the Presidents found themselves persistently committed to increasing the number of American troops fighting in the contested countries. And as the situations became more intractable, public opinion rapidly turned against them.
In both cases, those American Presidents found themselves, for a period, unable to resist the call of the military for more troops to be sent to the countries, and found the responsibility for the wars being conducted gradually being placed largely on their shoulders, rather than on those of the leaders of the contested states themselves. And in both cases too, the Presidents found themselves declaring that the interventions in which they were involved represented “wars of choice” necessary to be undertaken to ensure the long-term security of the United States.
Obama’s electoral campaign, undertaken at a time when the Iraq war had become deeply unpopular with the American people, emphasized the importance of the Iraqi people taking responsibility for the security of their own country. This had, as a necessary complement, the construction of a government in such a manner as to represent a reasonably large and stable consensus among an Iraqi population divided into various ethnic and religious groupings. The so-called military surge, prosecuted under the direction of the American general McChrystal, also presumed that the Iraqi forces would gradually assume responsibility for stabilizing the military situation, particularly in the main cities.
Candidate Obama, critical of the war, but seeking to safeguard himself in that context from any charge of being “soft” in the prosecution of American security objectives, took a slightly different perspective on Afghanistan. During his campaign he defined the ongoing insurgency in that country as a “necessary war” – necessary in the sense that it was Afghanistan that had been originally seen as the source of the Al Qaeda initiatives that led to 9/11; and that the US could not allow the circumstances previously prevailing there to be repeated. And he perhaps had in mind that, the American people had perceived Afghanistan as the place where US support had successfully helped to uproot the Taliban from their dominance there, in the process forcing the withdrawal of the Soviet Union from that country under the auspices of the United Nations, after its ten year military intervention.
But today, the now President Obama seems to find himself in the old Vietnam/Iraq predicament of his predecessors. That is, the predicament of America being involved in a war becoming increasingly unpopular among the American people, while the military and its civilian allies pressure the Administration to send more troops to stabilize the situation. The Pew Research Centre in the United States reported last month, that the percentage of Americans wishing their troops to remain in Afghanistan until stability is achieved, fell from 57% in June of this year to 50%; and that the percentage wanting the troops out as quickly as possible had risen from 38% to 43%. Further, among the President’s Democratic Party supporters 56% want the troops out, as against 37% who want them to continue.
That is undoubtedly the political context in which the President now finds himself faced with a request from General McChrystal, of Iraq fame, and now transferred by Mr Obama to Afghanistan, for what is reported to be a substantial increase in the number of troops required to prosecute the insurgency in Afghanistan. The General is undoubtedly influenced by his previous experience, while being aware that there seems to be an increase in pressure from the Taliban which President Karzai’s Afghanistan, and the present complement of American and NATO forces is unable to cope with.
So the President seems placed in the classical position of American Presidents in military excursions since the end of the Second World War – that of sending more and more troops to cope with an increasingly intractable situation in a context of a weak and corrupt indigenous government. The recent election in Afghanistan has made this predicament clearer, as the Karzai government is seen as having committed much fraud, and the President would appear to be reluctant to respond to American pressure to take some ameliorative measures that can pacify the opposition.
President Obama, no doubt fearful of being himself caught in the predicament of being labeled “soft” in the face of a request for more troops from a popular general, has been taking time to resort to one direction or the other or, more likely, to find a solution somewhere in the middle. The Republican party has taken up the gauntlet in defence of the General’s position, deliberately creating a situation of politicization of the military’s position. And to this they have added opposition to the President’s recent decision to abandon President Bush’s original decision to place strategic weapons in Poland and the Czech Republic, a move determined by Russia to be against itself. In virtually accusing Obama of appeasement to the Russians, the Republicans obviously want to paint, and extend, a picture of him as weak and defeatist in the making of American foreign policy as a whole.
The confused electoral situation in Afghanistan has, to some extent, given the President some respite from an immediate decision. But the signs are that General McChrystal, while conscious of the role of the military vis-à-vis the Presidency and the political institutions of the state, will be pressing for an urgent response, and that Mr Obama will have to respond in good time. And the Republicans are sure to continue adding fuel to the fire, even as the President remains cognizant of the historical record of Afghanistan as the graveyard of foreign interventionists.
As the Korean war, at the beginning of the 1950’s, deemed then to be a de facto decisive conflict between the West and the Soviet camp, became increasingly intractable, the popular American General McArthur sought to pressure then President Truman to consider the use of the atomic weapon. Truman, facing the determination of McArthur and a certain political support for him at home, fired the popular general.
It is unlikely that President Obama, so early in his Presidency, and seeking to maintain political capital for his domestic reform measures, will want to find himself in such a situation. But he is running the risk, suggested by both his supporters and his opponents, of being painted and perceived as unable to decisively make decisions, and to get potentially damaging situations off his plate. And while he ponders what he needs to do, the Afghanistan insurgency seems to be in grave danger of affecting Pakistan, leaving the Americans to wonder whether they are achieving a combination of the efforts of both the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
The war in Afghanistan has now become Obama’s war.
