The White House pushes the Afghan decision down the road again

porkbelly

The reason it is taking so long is not that Obama is wrestling with the details of the McChrystal plan - if the goal is decisive victory, as in Iraq, he simply needs to sign off on the plan. It's quite straightforward: victory = more troops. Unfortunately Obama isn't the least interested in victory. His only goal is to find the nearest exit without leaving behind too much politically-damaging wreckage (damaging to him, that is - his erstwhile allies will have to develop some survival skills). That requires a far more complicated strategy, and one more fraught with peril. It appears he is trying to cobble together some sort of accomodation with the Taliban coupled with a "regional" solution (i.e., involving the Pakistani army and intelligence services) to keep things under control as Afghanistan deteriorates into tribal fiefdoms, and a fleet of Predators in case Al Qaeda return. There are so many ways for this strategy to go awry...if anything it is reminiscent of the sort of technocratic approach that Robert NcNamara pursued with such catastrophic results in Vietnam. Britain, which will not be consulted until the night before it is announced, will get to take its share of the shrapnel when things go south.

Snowman

indecisive, not consulting with allies he may be, but he ain't Bush. Should this not be enough for everyone?

TrevorsDen

During the election Obama rubbished Iraq and purported to suggest that Afghanistan was more important and 'winnable' (and 'good').

As such he suckered allies (not least the arse licking Brown) into committing blood and treasure into Afghanistan.

Now in power he is in true Democrat fashion rowing back and dropping his allies in it. The only ally who displayed any type of realism was Italy who paid the taliban to leave them alone and murder their allies soldiers instead.

This war like any other can only be won by fighting and inevitably suffering losses. there is no reason for delay if that is the intention.

Increasingly though Obama is now looking for an excuse to pull out and we the British are seeing our soldiers die for nothing. The uncertainty will surely mean the army being very cautious about going out of its way to look for trouble and the Taliban biding their time and gaining strength ready for the inevitable pull out.

Ian Hill

He fears we can not contain this civil war and he knows it would be political suicide to withdraw. The neocons don't care how many people die for the "cause"

Ian Stewart

I believe the reason for the delay is quite different.
While the very sensitive Health Care debate is raging he will not want to irritate the Pelosi liberals nor the Senate waverers with what, for many Democrats, would be a very red Afghan flag. He will do nothing until the Health Care dust has settled somewhat and the direction of that legislation has more a little clarity. My guess, early December he will announce a messy compromise, pleasing no-one.
A one term President in the making!

David Lindsay

Why wait for them? We should just get out of our own accord.

TrevorsDen

Mr Hill - this is not a civil war. The Taliban are foreign fighters and mercenaries.

Who are 'neocons' (we have a liberal Democrat Administration) and what is the 'cause'? Its bad enough talking drivel - the least you can do is explain it.

hadrian

Nor should we forget his not so sneaking admiration for Islamic culture, so publically expressed. The war was a mistake from the first but at least George Bush was 'up front'. This guy's a Hamlet by contrast.

David Preiser

TrevorsDen has it right. I hope all of you who were so excited about the Hope and Change that would come with this new Administration got what you were looking for. Don't say some of us didn't warn you, though.

strapworld

A search through past comments will show that Verity and myself wrote just after Obama was elected that people would soon regret it!

Unable to make a decision. Unwilling to make a decision. The man is a complete waste of space.

Remember 'We Can'!!!!!
He, so obviously, cannot.

ps. As David Cameron has had to apologise for a quite disgraceful 'photo opportunity' within the grounds of Westminster Abbey posing before the Remembrance crosses for our fallen hero's. Will he now do the honourable thing and resign?

I cannot believe that the Conservative Party can allow itself to be ''led''? by this weak, arrogant PR man.

Time for a change for someone who will stand up for the United Kingdom.

strapworld

Having just read Fraser nelson's article in the News of the World, in which he is praising Gordon Brown. I do think, with Mr Nelson refusing to write anything about immigration, despite a personal assurance to me, and the general drift of this blog. That The Spectator is becoming a Labour loving magazine.

Now if this is to rid the Tory party of the weak Cameron, then I can well understand it. The Country needs a leader who will stand up for the UK and Cameron is most certainly not that man. He aint a leader.

But I would suggest to all readers and contributors to this blog to read Mr nelson's article and you may agree with my assessment.

TomTom

Obama dos not like people, Bush could engage with people and was not aloof acting like a College Professor with a detachment from the issues. Obama is not engaged with anything but process, he has not been a State Governor nor an experienced Senator; he is simply a Placeman from the Chicago Machine and goes through the motions; but Decisions are the lifeblood of high office. Journalists may carp and Historians may comment; but the Man in The Oval Office DECIDES........Obama has not yet made the transition to Deciding and facing the Consequences

Blofeld's Cat

@strapworld

DC's resignation would have to be followed very quickly by Brown's (as he too has been forced to apologise.)
Rather, I think the resignations of Harman, Baroness Scotlandd, McNulty ....... would be more justified.

Irene

Strapworld:

It looks like that.

Ross J Warren

This is to be regretted, but may be sensible as the US’s key ally, which is us, is on the edge of a key general election. Rather than being Lightweight by now the President must be counting off the days before a sensible and rational PM takes up the mantle of law in our greatest of nations. Once the Conservative party is installed in its rightful place as the party of the state, it will be far easier for the President to make the right and proper commitment to the Afghan theatre of war. Of course this may sound unlikely to those cynical people who undermine the very great importance of Great Britain in NATO, they are of course barking, but we knew that didn’t we?

Verity

Tom Tom - You are right. Obama does not like people.

He has no intellectual wherewithal. Just ambition. And his wife dresses in upholstery fabric and couch throws, which is odd.

Grant Carlson

Western Europeans were overwhelmingly for the Presidency of Barrack Obama, much more so than the American people, while remaining united in their hatreds against George Bush. Now they, like the American people and most others, are displaying their regrets.

The chief lesson we should learn from this debacle is to remember Martin Luther King's words that people should "not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character".

Obama never had any character, or substance, or experience, but would say instead whatever his handlers put in front of him. Those who voted for him simply wanted to believe, unwilling to recognize that Black people can be flim-flam artists just as can Whites, Browns, Orientals, and so on.

That "special relationship" between Britain and the United States might well be over, as well as America's standing in the world, and all because we ignored or forgot those immortal words of MLK.

Grant Carlson

"Time for a change for someone who will stand up for the United Kingdom".

What does that mean, Strapworld? Stand up to whom? Or for what?

It seems to me that first you have to decide, in no uncertain terms, what it is you stand for.

Britain appears to be adrift in the eyes of many foreigners. Are you now politically and culturally aligned with Europe, to be dominated by France, Germany and Brussels, or more in tune with the "Anglosphere"? Will the harsh antiAmericanism continue as it has been for the past decades or will the suspicions be directed at those who would be genuine threats to your stability and future? Will political correctness rather than historical views of right and wrong determine which direction you're headed?

These are questions Britons must ask themselves before they can stand up to anyone.

Vulture

The sad truth is that what used to be called 'the western world' has fallen into the palsied grip of a bunch of incompetents, malevolents, megalomaniacs weaklings, lefties and general dross. (I refer to Messrs Sarkozy, Obama, Bruin, Zapatero,Rudd etc. Sadly, this also includes Cameron and Osbourne. What it amnounts to is a horrendous dearth of leadership, and belief in strong free and independent societies. As John Milton said in 'Lycidas': "The hungry sheep look up and are not fed". Where are the De Gaulles, Churchills, Reagans and Thatchers? Nowhere.

Snowman

Afghanistan has turned into a nightmare, whichever way one cuts it. Dispatching in the whole might of the US Armed Forces cannot do much good, if the button on a drone’s missile locked on the enemy gets pushed by a ‘uman rights lawyer in Florida. Leaving, and the whole world will perceive it as a victory for the other side bigger than 9/11. Then, it was the forces of evil against unprepared civilians, now, it’s the military power of the world’s only superpower that would be the looser.

Obama may be many things, but stupid he ain’t what with being hatched by the Chicago political machine. He must have known for some time that it’s a lose/lose case, hence the prevarication. Somebody ought to tell him he need not worry. Whichever way he moves, he’ll be absolved by his followers, there’s always Bush to blame.

Matt

Unless or until my United States gets its act together, the free world needs you Brits to carry the torch and have a PM with Lady Thatcher's principles and leadership talents.

Frasier Nelson

strapworld, where do I praise Gordon Brown in that piece? what slander.

Frank P

In order to understand any of Obama's current machinations and inactions it is essential not to lose sight of the forces and connections that led to his meteoric rise to the top job in world politics.

Trevor Loudon logs his latest report on those connections:

http://newzeal.blogspot.com/2009/11/obama-file-90-alice-palmer-re-examined.html

It is also worth watching and listening to Loudon being interviewed about that report by Breitbart TV.

http://newzeal.blogspot.com/2009/11/loudon-on-palmer-on-breitbart.html#links

It is deeply depressing that (as far as I know) no British journalist has bothered to cover Loudon's work, other than Melanie Phillips. The implications for Britain are profound, particularly as David Cameron is obviously an admirer of Obama.