The Aftermath of McChrystal

Obama hasn't done a clean sweep on the civilian side of the house, despite some astute foreign policy pundits calling for it.  Who in the administration is in charge of Afghanistan political policy? Is it Clinton? Holbrooke? Eikenberry? Jones?  Hard to say.  McClatchy just noted last week we have no long term political strategy in Afghanistan which in turn is hurting the military effort:

The failure to articulate what a post-American Afghanistan should look like and devise a political path for achieving it is a major obstacle to success for the U.S. military-led counter-insurgency campaign that's underway, these officials and experts said.

The result is "strategic confusion," said Ronald E. Neumann, who served as the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan from 2005-07.

 
Peter Feaver at Shadow Gov't has some perceptive observations on the implications of the replacing McChrystal with Petraus:

If President Obama's only problem was how to deal with a great fighter who cultivated a poor command climate and was careless in his media relations, then the problem is solved - and deftly so.

But operationally, I fear Obama's problems are greater and that the Petraeus-for-McChrystal swap is an insufficient step. Operationally, the problem is that McChrystal's intemperate statements about his colleagues were impolitic but accurate. [emphasis added.]  The occasion called for a more extensive housecleaning than Obama performed.  Obama punished the one guy caught on tape, not the others on the team that were underperforming.

Yes, Obama in his statement reaffirmed the importance of unity of effort.  Yes, Obama said he "won't tolerate division."  But so far as we know, nothing else was done to fix the other problems.  Petraeus may well prove a more deft and diplomatic bureaucratic operator than McChrystal, but Obama did not set him up for success with the clean sweep that was warranted.

And strategically, I worry that Obama has robbed Peter to pay Paul -- increased the risks in Iraq and Iran in order to reduce the risks in Afghanistan. As CENTCOM Commander, Petraeus was the senior military officer watching Iraq. Given the administration's rush to declare mission accomplished there, one might say that Petraeus was the only senior member of the Obama national security team who seemed to understand just how fragile was the hard-won progress in that critical country. Likewise, Petraeus' reputation probably bought us a non-trivial margin of credibility on the pressure track with Iran. Weakening the pressure track weakens our diplomatic leverage and hastens the day we will confront an Iranian nuclear weapon. Viewed this way, the appointment of Petraeus may be less important than the appointment of Petraeus' successor.

When Obama replaced McChrystal with Petraus, he announced his Afghan strategy would not change. His SecDef keeps saying the timetable is not a timetable, we delayed the Kandahar offensive, the Taliban are still refusing to negotiate, and Obama doesn't think his strategy needs adjustment, or that maybe he's not receiving the best advice from the civilians?  What a way to stay the course--until 2011.

Obama is more interested in transforming America domestically than in dealing with foreign policy.  He's perceives he's got plenty of "brights" on the civilian side of the house to handle that portfolio. He views Afghanistan as a problem to solve. One senses little moral imperative or conviction in why we should stay in Afghanistan. He seems to have no guiding principles on foreign policy, except that it shouldn't detract from his transformation projection. So it's not too much of a surprise our policy in Afghanistan is in trouble, particularly when one's adversaries senses the US President does not really feel invested in it.