The Afghanistan Dither

After many weeks of “dither,” this word seldom heard or used burst into prominence. The right wing accused Obama of dithering, i.e. lacking decision making regarding the war in Afghanistan. I went to Webster to see what exactly it meant to “dither.” “Dither: Trembling, quivering. State of great agitation, excitable confusion. To act hesitatingly or in a disturbed or excited manner.”

There you have it. Now which word is referring to Obama? Well he was not quivering or in great agitation, so I guess he was hesitating. How dare he hesitate when we are supposed to be off to war. Yes, McCain, Beck, Huckabee, et al were accusing the President of the brand new crime of “dithering” over what to do with the war in Afghanistan. The White House insisted that the President was very deeply involved studying his options with all his top advisors. In fact the Sunday Times reported that he had been in constant discussions with 16 of his top advisors, half of whom were military and the others Cabinet members like Clinton, Biden, Rice and Emanuel. That’s who he had been dithering with for weeks trying to figure out what to do about the Afganistan war.

They came to the conclusion that they would send in 30,000 more troops and create some benchmarks to be met for the Afganis’ under Karzai. In exchange for this effort we would start to draw down our troops by 2011. Here’s the thing that drives me nuts. We have this big kabuki gathering of Generals and other high level government bureaucrats. Each plays their role. “I am the General so give me more troops and stuff. I am Special Envoy so I tell Karzai to shape up or else. As Secretary of State I will get support amongst allies,” and so on and so forth.

I don’t believe that any of this had beans to do with the final decision. During the campaign Obama made clear his opposition to escalating the war. Now he’s the President, so what happened? What is missing from the West Point speech and the long newspaper articles is the political considerations that that went into the decision making process.

Here’s how I think it went. First of all, we have this serious economic situation here at home. If we don’t get the unemployment numbers under control by 2010 Obama is going to take a shellacking in the midterms. If he walks away from Afghanistan, the right wing will use the old excuse that the Dems are soft on terrorists and are giving into our enemies. That’s a serious threat to Obama’s chances in 2012. That’s what went into the Administration’s decision to pick up where George Bush left off. Did we already forget that with all the expose of the “phony war” against non-existent WMD, old George won re-election anyway. In my opinion, if Obama wants a second term, he has to follow the Bush strategy. Political lesson: “It is far better to keep fighting a dumb war that will solve nothing in the end than to take action against it and end it.” The politicos are also haunted by the spectacle of poor old LBJ in his last days; a sort of King Lear victim of the Veitnam fiasco. I am also reminded that we nostalgically cling to our myths of wild west frontier where the lone shootemup cowboy is our legendary hero. We want to relive that in every military encounter.

So as we listen to all the Generals, Special Envoys’ Holbrooke or Mitchell, and assorted other experts, keep in mind that what we are seeing is primarily a political decision. It has more to do with what’s happening on the ground here at home than in the hills of Kandahar, Waziristan or Kabul.

Thanks Kate N.H.W.Y.