Obama V. McChrystal

An interesting personal dynamic is building, with Commander-in-Chief Barack Obama and General Stanley McChrystal.

Obama is currently pondering what to do next in the troubled Afghan war. Obama and the White House realigned the entire Afghan strategy in March, after Obama spent the entire Presidential election stating that Afghanistan was the war of necessity, the war we must win.

So Obama searched for his military leader, and he handpicked Gen. McChrystal. McChrystal had a unique background. For several years, he had led the anti-insurgency effort in Iraq. He was instrumental in building the intelligence and special forces structure to successfully attack the hierarchy of the insurgency and Al Qaeda in Iraq.

The irony is that Obama chose McChrystal for one other reason. He felt the General, who is one of the new cohort of generals in the military led by General David Petraeus, that believe that they have a duty to the President, but also have a duty to speak out about what they think is the best strategy going forward.

And it is that characteristic more than any other that has come back to haunt the President.

While Obama sits and ponders and debates his new Afghan strategy, he allowed McChrystal to attend aconference at the Institute of International and Strategic Studies In London. McChrystal also had a 60 minutes interview last week. Gen McChrystal, who heads the 68,000 US troops in Afghanistan as well as the 100,000 Nato forces, flatly rejected proposals to switch to a strategy more reliant on drone missile strikes and special forces operations against al-Qaeda. In both interviews, he clearly stated his belief: that the war could be lost if the correct strategy was not chosen; that the formula of limited anti-terrorism (which, ironically, has a handbook within the military written by...yup, Gen. McChrystal himself) which is favored by Vice-President Joe Biden, would lead to "Chaos-istan"; and that any half measure would certainly lead to mission failure.

When asked whether he would support it, he said: "The short answer is: No."

He went on to say: "Waiting does not prolong a favorable outcome. This effort will not remain winnable indefinitely, and nor will public support."

American President's have rarely heard such a strong-armed approach from their Generals. But in this, Obama is at fault; when McChrystal was picked over the quiet and more mundate Gen. McKiernan, one of the attributes that many White House Staffers praised was his openess and his ability to strongly advocate his own opinion.

Now, of course, that is not what the White House really wants. They want generals that capitulate. But Obama failed to understand the man he had picked. McChrystal was and is fully behind the Obama plan for Afghanistan circa March 2009: an anti-insurgency plan along the lines of Iraq, where you clear, hold and maintain the peace, in order to allow the local government to materialize. McChrystal has not changed; and in all honesty, the facts on the ground in Afghanistan have not changed in the interim.

What has changed is public opinion, and Obama's will power. Earlier this year, when asked what his toughest decision has been as President, Mr. Obama quickly pointed to sending 17,000 additional troops to the Afghan theater. Obama (not unexpectedly) has always felt unsure about his position on Afghanistan. It was the obvious position needed to win the election, but in his heart of hearts, I doubt Obama (who til this day is steadfastly of the opinion that the Surge in Iraq was not the right choice) really believed that his own surge was the right path to take.

Obama would rather not worry about Afghanistan at all. McChrystal let a small secret out of the bag in his 60 Minutes interview: since be chosen as head General in March, he had talked to the President only once. That is an incredible statement of fact; that during a war in which 70,000 U.S. troops are involved, that the President is not concerned to make a phone call more than once every 6 months.

For the White House now to be angry at McChrystal for his honesty is disturbing. It is as disturbing as the President and Democrats in Congress blocking the Senate from hearings with McChrystal.

Obama now has been boxed in by his own General. He can choose to stay the course, and continue the Obama surge, supported by the military establishment, to the anger of his political left; or he can choose to discard his short lived Afghanistan policy that he supported through out the campaign, admitting that he was clearly wrong, and basically admit a slow, organized retreat...which would ultimately lead to victory for the Taliban. And in the course of that retreat, he may see the mass defection of generals who had bought into his earlier policy, but will not accept this kind of wholesale defeat in the war that the President called 'the war we must win.'

Talk about a rock and a hard place.