In Which Obama Has A General Problem, Just Like A Real President*
Roggio at Long War points to and discusses a McClatchy report that McChrystal is ready to resign if not given the resources to prosecute the war in Afghanistan.
I’m going to guess Obama and Emanuel are not going to take kindly to being pressured, but it puts them in a spot.
They could always pre-emptively fire him, I suppose. But firing two generals who tell you that you need more, including the guy you hired to tell you how to do it with less, starts to look like a crisis. A grossly mishandled one. This is not exactly a Lincolnian crisis of generalship or a Truman-MacArthur one, either. Nor, contrary to all the Vietnam tooth-gnashing, is this LBJ and Westmoreland. It isn’t even a Bush wartime leadership crisis. Bush always played to win. He just needed to figure out how and find the right general for the job.
This one is all Obama. And it is not a crisis of generalship. It is a crisis of presidential leadership.
The tug-o-war playground politics of the matter aside, there is still the fact of war in Afghanistan, a persistent global threat, and the rapidly diminishing credibility of the United States as a stalwart, moral force in the world, from the limp handling of Iran to the delivery of tribute to Vladimir Putin, and now the dawdling and dithering over the erstwhile good war. For all their squawking about us, the Euros don’t need us to be another EU member. They need someone to do the dirty work. Ditto the Arabs. China and Russia have got to be enjoying this, though.
On second thought, there is a sort of double-reverse presidential precedent to this crisis. It’s Obama as McClellan. Not exactly Lincolnesque, but very Lincoln-proximate.
Totally related: Victor Davis Hanson at NRO looks at Two-Front Wars, Theirs and Ours and comes away with something other than the currently fashionable doom-and-gloom mongering. It’s al-Qaeda after eight years of war, on the ropes and desperate. I like the part about how al-Qaeda took their eye off the ball and committed resources to Iraq, to their detriment.
Anyway, think about it, Obama. History loves a warfighter who wins.
Politico handicaps the parlor game.
In other war-related business, Malkin on the jihadi threat to America’s rail security. It’s about some guy named Najibullah Zazi. Afghan refugee, raised in Peshawar, naturalized American, drives a cab in Denver. It’s a small world after all!
Previously, To Look Good Or To Feel Good? Obama’s Lamasian dilemma.
* You know. A real president. One who recognizes that there are some things bigger than his own ambitions, image and political agenda, and maybe even recognizes that his ambitions, image and political agenda depend on recognizing that.
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Topics: Afghanistan, Obama, history, military
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:17 am Comments (6) on Tuesday, September 22, 2009
6 Responses to “In Which Obama Has A General Problem, Just Like A Real President*”
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September 22nd, 2009 at 12:15 pm
Good for General McChrystal. He just gave Obama a slap upside the head and told him to get serious. If it fails, and he’s forced to resign, then Afghanistan will be the defeat snatched from the jaws of victory that the Democrats always wanted, and no American will ever be safe anywhere anytime.
September 22nd, 2009 at 12:53 pm
[...] Jules Crittenden on General McChrystal threatening to resign: “This one is all Obama. And it is not a crisis of generalship. It is a crisis of presidential leadership.” [...]
September 22nd, 2009 at 8:19 pm
[...] In Which Obama Has A General Problem, Just Like A Real President [...]
September 22nd, 2009 at 8:26 pm
[...] In Which Obama Has A General Problem, Just Like A Real President* Roggio at Long War points to and discusses a McClatchy report that McChrystal is ready to resign if not given the resources to prosecute the war in Afghanistan. [...]
September 22nd, 2009 at 9:10 pm
Obama doesn’t have a General problem, the Generals have an Obama problem. If he hadn’t had the economic crisis to exploit with his chief-of-staff, Rahm (let no crisis, even if self-inflicted, go un-exploited) Emanuel, along with Pelosi and Reid, he would have been, “Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player who struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more.” Unfortunately, he’s proving to be more of a, “tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”. But ruining much!
September 23rd, 2009 at 10:38 am
I’m sure McCain would know what to do. After all, he laid out the winning strategy for Iraq even before Bush did. But then we would be missing out on Obama’s deft handling of the economy and health care reform and foreign relations and… um… huh.