What's a guy to do when the right is right? Especially when
it's right about what it's been wrong about for so long. Especially if it's
right for the wrong reasons? Especially if it's right about something that the
sensible center and a president you otherwise admire is so wrong about?
The simple answer, of course, is to swallow hard, agree and
change the subject. The other approach is to blog.
Blogging allows room for (a little) nuance. So here's where
that begins: When I refer to the "right" above, I actually only mean one guy,
although he himself is a pillar of the conservative establishments, George
Will.
Specifically, I am referring to
his op-ed today entitled "It's
Time to Leave Afghanistan." In this instance, not only is he correct, he is
ahead of the curve, a place that must be as shockingly unfamiliar to most of
his followers as a visit to Afghanistan's Helmand province, a place Will
correctly cites as a great case study in the futility of U.S. efforts in that
tragically embattled land.
Yet, every so often Will hits the nail on the head and this
is one of those times. And there is no
greater proof to that than moments after the newspaper containing his column
landed on my doorstep, I heard Joe Scarborough saying that the right was up in
arms about it. This is where we get to
the part about Will being right about what the right has been wrong about for
so long. Because while Afghanistan is
increasingly Obama's war (and will be only more so if he accedes to the
recommendations of his battlefield commander Stanley McChrystal to up our troop
commitments and other investments there), it didn't start out that way.
We entered the country in an understandable national spasm
of anger toward al Qaeda and the Taliban after 9/11. Any president would have done that, I
think. But rather than keeping the
mission narrowly focused on exacting punishment and reducing the capabilities
of the terrorists and their protectors in a swift and limited action, we
accepted the idea, almost without debate, that America should wage a war on
terror. The alternative approach, argued
the right, would be to treat it as purely a criminal matter which would
underplay the risks and produce inadequate responses. This is true, of course. Which is why they said it. But, it was a false choice. There is a middle ground. One can imagine targeted, tactical responses
to specific threats that would likely be just as effective in reducing the
risks to America and Americans ... or more so when you consider that myriad
escalating and amplifying effects of pursuing the war strategy as we have.
As for Will being right for the wrong reasons, I can only
speculate about his motivations, of course. They may be very narrowly founded on a desire to do what's in the
national interest. I hope that's all
there is to it and not a desire to further politicize the sensitive decision
Obama faces on this issue (see today's lead story in the Times by Peter Baker
and Dexter Filkins). It is in the
interest of no Americans to see this war spiral downward into an even worse,
more futile entanglement than it is. As
Will correctly says, now is the time to reverse course, define goals even more
narrowly and undertake the exit. Keep
resources nearby. Strike fiercely
against imminent threats using the distance weapons and, where essential,
special forces. But stop trying to win
the unwinnable. Recognize that shutting
one terrorist enclave only creates another somewhere else. Stop lying to ourselves about Hamid Karzai
who is rapidly becoming as crappy a former American puppet as any in the long
list of supremely crappy former American puppets we have ever propped up. Disconnect ourselves from the futile charade
of saying we are trying to contain the poppy business when in fact what we are
often doing is protecting its key players ... men who are certainly responsible for
more deaths worldwide than all the terrorist enemies in the region.
And in so doing, move to a new footing in Pakistan, reduce
the risk of our getting involved in or exacerbating that country's deep civil
tensions. Focus on securing their
nuclear weapons and reducing any threat they may pose to India, our most
"natural" important ally in the region.
In short, President Obama should recognize that of all the
mistakes made early in his administration, trading "the wrong war" in Iraq for "the right war" in
AfPak was probably the biggest and that he has a chance to stop and reverse
course now, based on what he has learned (and Admiral Mullen seems to know and
imply through his public statements) and not just get out of the country, not
just avoid an even longer-term involvement in this expanding war, but also to
once and for all reject the Bush administration's to the "war on terror" not
just in name but in deed.
Where there's a Will, there's a way.
MANAN VATSYAYANA/AFP/Getty Images
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