L’Etat C’est O
Have your fun with O’s full-body kowtow to the delightful Mr. Akihito, who really does look like a pleasant old gent. When it comes to the important things, his Omperial Majesty won’t bow to pressure. He’s maintained a spine of steel in his refusal to decide what the heck he’s going to do in Afghanistan, and Politico notes the irritation His Oness exhibited when the first question from the White House Press Corps was about the dithering on Afghanistan, from the AP’s Jennifer Loven of all people. Odd, I don’t remember a tone of irked sputtering coming across in the resulting article:
Jennifer Loven of The Associated Press had asked: “Can you explain to people watching and criticizing your deliberations what piece of information you’re still lacking to make that call.”
“With respect to Afghanistan, Jennifer,” the president scolded, “I don’t think this is a matter of some datum of information that I’m waiting on. … Critics of the process … tend not to be folks who … are directly involved in what’s happening in Afghanistan. Those who are, recognize the gravity of the situation and recognize the importance of us getting this right.”
The cool president’s heated response reflected second-guessing from the press and Pentagon about a process that has spanned eight formal meetings with his war cabinet, totaling about 20 hours.
The White House has been deliberately portraying the process as thorough, emphasizing the opposing views the president has considered, as a way of positing a contrast with President George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq.
Not really sure what the critics have been talking about re Bush and Iraq. As I recall, that process of deciding whether and how to invade Iraq took a year and a half, involved input from multiple international intelligence agencies, governments and bodies, and was an escalation of American policy following on more than a decade of defiance and aggression on Iraq’s part covering two prior presidential administrations. It’s not like Bush woke up one morning in March 2003 and said, “Let’s do it.”
It is more comparable to the debate over how heavy to go into Iraq, in which Rumsfeld’s Go-Lite approach prevailed. That proved sufficient for the takedown, not for the occupation. It is also more comparable to Bush’s process of figuring out how to unscramble the resulting mess, which involved some trial and error before the Surge was settled on. What is different this time is that Obama, having already indicated he’s going with a proven counterinsurgency approach, is now dickering over the details, down to increments of literally a few thousand troops and exactly how and where they will be deployed.
Anyway, in the latest Afghan news, nOblesse may O-blige, but still no word from O. Indicators we may be getting close, however, include Clinton saying the US will demand heat to the feet of corrupt Afghan officials. She adds the United States’ goal there is to defeat al-Qaeda. I guess that means Joe Biden has officially lost his fight. Washington Post:
“We agree that our goal here is to defeat al Qaeda,” Clinton said. “We understand that the Afghans themselves need help in order to defend themselves against the Taliban. Those are mutually reinforcing missions, but our highest obligation is to the American people. It is to do everything we can to make sure that America is secure, that our allies, our interests around the world are protected. And that is what we’re focused on.”
Clinton acknowledged the role of Pakistan in combatting further al-Qaeda growth in the region.
“We have made it clear to the Pakistanis, as well as to the Afghans and others, that we want to do everything we can to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaeda,” Clinton said.
Biden hasn’t just lost, he’s getting dissed.
Clinton stated that the goal in Afghanistan is obvious, but did not elaborate on how to halt the activities of a stateless, constantly-morphing entity like al-Qaeda.
“Our goal is very clear. We want to get the people who attacked us, and we want to prevent them and their syndicate of terrorism from posing a threat to us, our allies and our interests.”
So much for the faction that insisted it was obvious that al-Qaeda was in Pakistan, and all we had to do was keep lobbing in Hellfires.
Meanwhile, Karzai has gotten the message and is rushing to form an anti-corruption unit that will keep the money flowing. Reuters.
Also, U.S. presses Paks to reorient their fight vs. the Taliban and al-Qaeda from the cities to havens. Attack North Waziristan. I was under the impression the Paks were on that, fighting hard in Swat and South Waziristan. Apparently they need to be encouraged to keep it up. NYT report includes this odd conflicting message:
For their part, Pakistani officials have told the Americans that they harbor two deep fears about Mr. Obama’s new strategy: that the United States will add too many troops on the Afghan side of the border, and that the American effort will end too soon.
Their first concern, described by officials on both sides of the recent discussions, is that if Mr. Obama commits an additional 30,000 or more troops, it will inevitably push more Taliban fighters across the border into Pakistani territory and complicate the South Waziristan offensive.
Every time Mr. Obama declares that the United States will not have an “open-ended” military commitment in Afghanistan, he fuels a second concern of the powerful Pakistani military and intelligence establishment, which believes the United States commitment is fleeting.
And this mixed message from Clinton, who not only thinks we need to defeat al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, but apparently thinks we need to do it on the fly:
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton appeared to fuel this concern on Sunday in her comments on the ABC program “This Week,” saying: “We’re not interested in staying in Afghanistan. We have no long-term stake there. We want that to be made very clear.”
That bit didn’t make it into the Washington Post for some reason. It’s odd. I was under the impression she got that we do have a long-term stake there … defeating al-Qaeda.
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Topics: Afghanistan, Obama
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 7:56 am on Monday, November 16, 2009
One Response to “L’Etat C’est O”
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November 16th, 2009 at 7:08 pm
I cannot hear Obama mouth the words ” some folks” or “let me be clear” anymore without experiencing the taste of ashes in my mouth. As if he were ever one of the “folks” or tried to be “clear”. Politics from this cycle on are going to suffer extremely, due to the large number of memes that no future politician will ever dare utter.