There was a point in Obama’s speech tonight where he veered off the specific topic at hand and summoned the American Myth, which is the creed we tell ourselves that we all believe.
Since the days of Franklin Roosevelt, and the service and sacrifice of our grandparents, our country has borne a special burden in global affairs. We have spilled American blood in many countries on multiple continents. We have spent our revenue to help others rebuild from rubble and develop their own economies. We have joined with others to develop an architecture of institutions – from the United Nations to NATO to the World Bank – that provide for the common security and prosperity of human beings.
We have not always been thanked for these efforts, and we have at times made mistakes. But more than any other nation, the United States of America has underwritten global security for over six decades – a time that, for all its problems, has seen walls come down, markets open, billions lifted from poverty, unparalleled scientific progress, and advancing frontiers of human liberty.
For unlike the great powers of old, we have not sought world domination. Our union was founded in resistance to oppression. We do not seek to occupy other nations. We will not claim another nation’s resources or target other peoples because their faith or ethnicity is different from ours. What we have fought for – and what we continue to fight for – is a better future for our children and grandchildren, and we believe that their lives will be better if other peoples’ children and grandchildren can live in freedom and access opportunity.
As a country, we are not as young – and perhaps not as innocent – as we were when Roosevelt was President. Yet we are still heirs to a noble struggle for freedom. Now we must summon all of our might and moral suasion to meet the challenges of a new age.
Very few Americans disagree with the sentiments expressed here by the president, but our history isn’t as selfless as we’d like to believe. A lot of those sentiments ring false and hollow after our invasion and occupation of oil-rich Iraq. They don’t quite fit with our participation in Operation Condor or our war with Vietnam. I worry about rhetoric that sugarcoats our shared history and leads people away from understanding why we have a problem with terrorism. But I want our country to behave the way Obama describes it. I want us to live out the true meaning of our creed. So, I have mixed feelings when I hear the president say these things. If he leads us into confusion, it’s a problem, but if he leads us to listen to our better angels, I’m all for it. And what Obama said is true in a glass-half-full kind of way. We need to hear about our positive accomplishments sometimes.
If we can get back the credibility on human rights we’ve lost, we can be a force for good in the world if we choose to be. Many will scoff at the hypocrisy of an America that just invaded and destroyed Iraq based on a tissue of lies having the gall to speak out about ‘moral suasion.’ I’ll admit that hearing it made my ears burn a bit. But what is the alternative? To slink off the world stage in shame and cease even pretending to live up to the myth we tell about ourselves? I think Obama’s course is the wiser one, provided that deeds match rhetoric with more consistency going forward.
But Obama gave a speech about Afghanistan, and we should probably discuss that. After the speech, I participated in a call with several senior administration officials from the Pentagon and National Security Council. I noted to them that the president had said in his speech that the border regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan are “the epicenter of the violent extremism practiced by al Qaeda” that provide safe havens for al-Qaeda to plan attacks. I asked them how important these safe havens were in the age of the Internet where plots can be hatched from anywhere. The answer I got was basically that a large number of terrorist attacks all across the world have been traced back to the border region, including more than one plot that has been disrupted in recent months. But, in a nod to my point, they also talked about the threat of instability in Pakistan that is presented by the Taliban movement on both sides of the border.
Now, I took this answer as both a good and a bad sign. On the good side, it shows that they understand where the real threat to our national security lies, and that is in Pakistan. On the bad side, their answer confirmed my suspicion that we have to take a large part of their sales pitch for this escalation with a big pinch of salt. The name of the game is not really building police and security forces in Afghanistan or tamping down corruption there so that we can leave. The real name of the game is in crushing this radical Islamist movement that is threatening the security and stability of both Afghanistan and (much more importantly) Pakistan.
And these advisers had quite a bit more to say about our new policy towards Pakistan in response to other questions. I can confirm that the bullshit meter registers significantly lower when these folks talk about the broader regional picture than when they try to tell us that they can stand-up a Karzai government in 18 months. They have thought this through, even if they are basically trying to ride to a tiger with a blindfold on. I believe them when they say that we really can’t afford to let this Taliban movement grow unmolested on either side of the border, but I don’t believe them when they tell me that they can solve this problem by standing up a corrupt, illegitimate government in Kabul in a year and a half with a mere 30,000 additional troops. To succeed, we’re going to need Pakistan to really commit to dealing with their problems. Fortunately, the administration is aware of this and it is part of their plan. Here is how Obama put it in his speech:
Third, we will act with the full recognition that our success in Afghanistan is inextricably linked to our partnership with Pakistan.
We are in Afghanistan to prevent a cancer from once again spreading through that country. But this same cancer has also taken root in the border region of Pakistan. That is why we need a strategy that works on both sides of the border.
In the past, there have been those in Pakistan who have argued that the struggle against extremism is not their fight, and that Pakistan is better off doing little or seeking accommodation with those who use violence. But in recent years, as innocents have been killed from Karachi to Islamabad, it has become clear that it is the Pakistani people who are the most endangered by extremism. Public opinion has turned. The Pakistani Army has waged an offensive in Swat and South Waziristan. And there is no doubt that the United States and Pakistan share a common enemy.
In the past, we too often defined our relationship with Pakistan narrowly. Those days are over. Moving forward, we are committed to a partnership with Pakistan that is built on a foundation of mutual interests, mutual respect, and mutual trust. We will strengthen Pakistan’s capacity to target those groups that threaten our countries, and have made it clear that we cannot tolerate a safe-haven for terrorists whose location is known, and whose intentions are clear. America is also providing substantial resources to support Pakistan’s democracy and development. We are the largest international supporter for those Pakistanis displaced by the fighting. And going forward, the Pakistani people must know: America will remain a strong supporter of Pakistan’s security and prosperity long after the guns have fallen silent, so that the great potential of its people can be unleashed.
It’s good that the administration recognizes the true threat to our national security, but it worries me that we must rely on Pakistan for our success. Because the real issue is stability in Pakistan, we can do everything right in Afghanistan and still not solve the problem. In fact, it’s possible that pushing the Taliban out of Afghanistan into Pakistan will make the real mission even more difficult.
The number one thing I came away with tonight is a feeling of pity that these well-meaning hard-working folks in Obama’s national security team have to deal with such complex problems. I am not convinced that their strategy is going to work, nor that we face that much of a special threat to our domestic security from the border regions. But I was convinced that an unstable Pakistan is a huge nuclear threat to the region and possibly beyond, and that the Taliban movement there must be rolled back as part of a larger effort to calm things down in the subcontinent.
Also available in orange.
…settled permanently, multilaterally.
There’s a real need for a formal international process, a kind of receiver-in-possession for failed nation-states.
This is something the nations of the world are going to have to grasp the nettle on sooner or later, with all its problems of sovereignty, ‘internal matters’, etc.
Address at Johns Hopkins University:“Peace Without Conquest”
April 7, 1965
At that time, slightly over 400 US troops had been reported as casualties in Vietnam. Two weeks later 60,000 more were dispatched.
“We fight because we must fight if we are to live in a world where every country can shape its own destiny.“
What absolute unmitigated bullcrap. You fight precisely to prevent countries from shaping their own destinies and to try to shape them to your own wishes. You fight precisely in order that you might impose your will – and your choice of despotic leaders who will be compliant with your demands – on countries. You fight not for the sake of “peoples so far away”. On the contrary, you fight to thwart their interests for the sake of your own. For god’s sake, please at least do not insult people’s intelligence by pretending anything else.
Johnson’s 1965 Johns Hopkins speech turned me against the Vietnam War. I had been reading up on the origins and current conditions in Vietnam (I was of draft age) and his statement that China was behind Vietnam was transparent bullcrap.
I had the same cringing when Obama used the cancer metaphor about al Quaeda. “al Quaeda” has become an empty symbol; folks need to have explained to them what al Quaeda has become and how it differs from those endless playings of 1990s training camp footage.
Forgive me if I’m wrong, but we’re at war in Afghanistan, not Pakistan, for the most part, right? Aside from a few drone missions?
I agree with what you said, but I feel you’re holding back for fear of being cut out of the loop. You know this is wrong, but you stop short of saying it. We all wish this would work, that Obama can wave his hand and make a miracle. But I stopped believing in miracles years ago. And it will take a miracle for Obama to be able to get us out of this quagmire, no matter what he said tonight.
About two weeks after 9/11, I said that the point of the attack was to get the US to retaliate in such a way that we would ultimately destabilize (nuclear armed) Pakistan. I still think bin Laden got what he wanted – it may take longer than a dozen more Friedman units to play out, but terrorists, unlike superpowers can afford to wait patiently.
I’m sleeping on it. This is just my initial reaction to a ton of data.
I’m a big fan of yours BooMan, but I’m afraid I just don’t understand this post. Are you saying that we need to escalate the war in Afghanistan in order to keep a lid on Pakistan’s nukes? Also: the line, “…the Taliban movement there must be rolled back as part of a larger effort to calm things down in the subcontinent.” sounded a lot like Tom Friedman’s rhetoric for invading Iraq. And I’m sorry to say, I don’t mean that as a compliment.
I’ve always thought it a useful exercise to project ourselves thousands of years into the future, and imagine what the archeologists and anthropologists of the year 5000 will be saying as they sift through the remnants of our civilization. They are going to find that way back in 2009, the Americans were facing massive domestic challenges of all sorts, and that their government was $11 trillion in the hole, and that global warming was encroaching by the day. And in the face of these grim realities, the Americans chose to get themselves bogged down in two wars on the other side of the globe, in countries and cultures that they don’t understand. I’m pretty sure that those people are going to think that we were nuts.
You mean we’re not nuts? I personally think of myself as a pistachio.
It’s not easy, being green.
😀 (Good catch).
Of course I can never think of nuts without remembering the scene in “Best in Show” where Harlan (Christopher Guest) recites all of the different kinds of nuts.
One of these days I will finally see that film!
My question:
Did the surge in Iraq work?
I was certain at the time it would be a huge failure. But did it work, in a way?
I really don’t know what to think there. So I’m really asking.
When George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and their entire administration are swinging from nooses in fulfillment of death sentences ordered by the World Court for war crimes, then we may get a shred back. Until then, to quote Peggy Noonan, we’ll keep on walking.
To my knowledge, the World Court does not have the death penalty as a punishment and even if they did, they would not be using nooses.
Trial and imprisonment would be sufficient for me to say we got our credibility on human rights (always a little hypocritical) back.
Even then, Dick Cheney would most like pull a Milsovic/Ken Lay to deny us the satisfaction of justice.
I also had that feeling of pity, pity for people I consider well-meaning and in an impossible situation. On a purely political level, I think Obama’s approach is likely best; even so, the criticism from his own party is pretty darn loud (and just compare how much the GOP would have fallen in line behind their guy).
A couple of other reactions: commentators are paying too much attention to the minutia of the speech – dissecting every turn of the phrase – and not enough to basic assumptions.
Further, I find myself less and less sure where I stand on those basic assumptions. Specifically, I don’t know how much danger we risk by going home immediately and completely abandoning ship. Moreover, I don’t think anyone knows. There are simply too many variables.
This leads me to my last observation: most of the reaction – from all over the political spectrum – seems based upon philosophy, rather than facts on the ground. To many on the Left, escalation is bad because war is a last, last resort; to many on the right, surrender is never an option. Personally, I think we’re in uncharted waters and that Afghanistan/Pakistan may defy many expectations, for better or worse.
And because of all the uncertainties, I have decided to trust the man who seems genuinely willing to evaluate and re-evaluate what is best for our country. I believe that, after 18 months of escalation, we will know much more, and if the results are unsatisfactory, I believe that Obama will reverse course. That’s my ultimate conclusion: I admire Obama enough to trust him… for now.
Obama is, above all, a bipartisan unifier. He genuinely believes his job is to forge as broad a consensus (primarily in the US, but also abroad) in support of whatever plan he comes up with on any given issues. Thus the actual merits of the plan – be it Afghanistan, healthcare, or climate change – are actually secondary. The key issue is whether Obama can forge some kind of mainstream, middle ground consensus around it.
Thus Obama had to announce some kind of escalation – if only to appease the Brass and the Republicans who will always try and accuse him of appeasement. But he also had to make it as small as possible, and as objective and time limited as possible in order to appease his own left wing. Thus the emphasis on a civilian strategy, and on partnership with Pakistan.
Of course the wingnuts won’t be happy – nothing he will ever do could make them happy – short of lying down and dying. Neither will those progressives be happy who see oh so many parallels with Vietnam and who doubt his capability to ever wind down the war. It is indeed difficult to see how any escalation cannot but increase Afghan regime dependency on an indefinite US presence.
The asset test will be whether, how and when Obama does close Guantanamo, end US military presence in Iraq, and ultimately Afghanistan. Interestingly he promises to do all three before his re-election date, so it is not some endless and empty long-fingering into an ever receding future.
But will he be able to control the military industrial complex? How will he fare if Iraq destabilises post withdrawal? What if there is never any “military” victory in Afghanistan? Obama has tied his fortunes to the good faith and loyalty of the military, and the patience of his own left wing. It is going to be a difficult ride, but given the realities of power in the US, was there ever going to be a “good” strategy option available to him?
For the first time, I wonder if perhaps Obama would be satisfied being a one-term president. Because I think he’s going to fail on at least two of those. I imagine he’ll get Guantanamo closed, since that’s more symbolic. Those who want to experiment with torture will continue to do it, but more quietly, and further out of sight.
But will he really get us out of Iraq? I doubt it. Will he really get us out of Afghanistan? After his speech last night, I doubt it.
Btw – the only “good” strategy would have been for him to lay out how the military only knew one way to fight a war – with violence, and that America had to get more creative and fight with jobs, with economic stimulus, with cooperation, with other options.
That’s the president I still long to meet. The one who can take the case against the permanent warfare state to the public and WIN that argument.
Can any US President be elected and survive whilst saying “the military only knew one way to fight a war – with violence”?
Is that not to attack a US “core value” that US strength and security rests on it being the biggest bully on the block?
(Don’t get me wrong – I agree with you – I just doubt any President could survive trying to relegate the military to second place. For all the talk of values and freedom and economic development, the US is quintessentially a military superpower and anyone who thinks otherwise has drunk the cool-aid and mistakes US rhetoric and self-mythification for reality).
It is interesting to me that the framework of AQ has been described as a franchise that allows it to operate worldwide yet like a franchise there is a head office bringing it full circle back to the operational head wherever UBL resides.
That brings back the goal of capturing UBL and the doc. What would those captures do at this point? We are so accustomed to relying on the debate we had to have when Bush failed to get him perhaps his relevance should be reintroduced.
The internet? We control the satellites over Afghanistan; we surveil Pakistan; AQ is more than aware of this and yet they use the internet which is interesting.