Extraordinary: U.S Ambassador Eikenberry cables Obama cautioning against troop increase.

[beachmom]

I have never seen anything like this:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/11/AR2009111118432.html?wpisrc=newsletter

U.S. envoy resists increase in troops
CONCERNS VOICED ABOUT KARZAI
Cables sent as Obama weighs deployment options

The U.S. ambassador in Kabul sent two classified cables to Washington in the past week expressing deep concerns about sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan until President Hamid Karzai's government demonstrates that it is willing to tackle the corruption and mismanagement that has fueled the Taliban's rise, senior U.S. officials said.

Karl W. Eikenberry's memos, sent as President Obama enters the final stages of his deliberations over a new Afghanistan strategy, illustrated both the difficulty of the decision and the deepening divisions within the administration's national security team. After a top-level meeting on the issue Wednesday afternoon -- Obama's eighth since early last month -- the White House issued a statement that appeared to reflect Eikenberry's concerns.

"The President believes that we need to make clear to the Afghan government that our commitment is not open-ended," the statement said. "After years of substantial investments by the American people, governance in Afghanistan must improve in a reasonable period of time."

On the eve of his nine-day trip to Asia, Obama was given a series of options laid out laid out by military planners with differing numbers of new U.S. deployments, ranging from 10,000 to 40,000 troops. None of the scenarios calls for scaling back the U.S. presence in Afghanistan or delaying the dispatch of additional troops.

But Eikenberry's last-minute interventions have highlighted the nagging undercurrent of the policy discussion: the U.S. dependence on a partnership with a Karzai government whose incompetence and corruption is a universal concern within the administration. After months of political upheaval, in the wake of widespread fraud during the August presidential election, Karzai was installed last week for a second five-year term.

First, he cables Pres. Obama, then it gets leaked to the WP? Thing is, not wanting to contradict Sen. Kerry but the fact that Karzai wouldn't even replace the head of the elections (who presided over the fraud in August) left me thinking the guy was not going to improve much in his second term. It seems that the Ambassador thinks Karzai will do nothing, and is speaking the truth about his worries.

Meanwhile, Pres. Obama is not happy:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091112/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_us_afghanistan

Official: Obama wants his war options changed

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama does not plan to accept any of the Afghanistan war options presented by his national security team, pushing instead for revisions to clarify how and when U.S. troops would turn over responsibility to the Afghan government, a senior administration official said Wednesday.

That stance comes in the midst of forceful reservations about a possible troop buildup from the U.S. ambassador in Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, according to a second top administration official.

In strongly worded classified cables to Washington, Eikenberry said he had misgivings about sending in new troops while there are still so many questions about the leadership of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

Obama is still close to announcing his revamped war strategy — most likely shortly after he returns from a trip to Asia that ends on Nov. 19.

But the president raised questions at a war council meeting Wednesday that could alter the dynamic of both how many additional troops are sent to Afghanistan and what the timeline would be for their presence in the war zone, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss Obama's thinking.

Look at this:

The sense that he was being rushed and railroaded has stiffened Obama's resolve to seek information and options beyond military planning, officials said, though a substantial troop increase is still likely.

The President isn't going to be bullied by the Generals. This is good news.

[Luftmensch067]

1. I believe our President is treating this with the deadly seriousness it requires

But I have to admire his strategic skills!

[karynnj]

2. I don't think Eikenberry and Kerry are really far apart here

Kerry has spoken about the corruption and the need to reform all year - including at Eikenberry's confirmation, where both thought this was a problem. I suspect that Kerry's dilemma is that all the alternatives are bad, so pushing the remote possibility of reform - but arguing in his plan that it be implemented only where there is legitimate Afghan government to fill in behind might be interpreted to be only where there are local governments that can provide "good enough" governance. (Eikenberry was the person with Kerry during much of the time in Afghanistan.)

The NYT has two articles, one on Eikenberry ( http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/12/us/politics/12policy.html?hp ). The other on Obama's dilemma as to Karzai. I think that dilemma - that we really have no alternative government, no lever to get good behavior, and an unwillingness to leave.

WASHINGTON — When President Obama delivered a rare and public call last week for President Hamid Karzai to crack down on corruption in Afghanistan, there was one glaring omission from his remarks — an “or else.”

Mr. Obama’s exclusion of the obvious threat — that he will pull American troops out of Afghanistan if Mr. Karzai does not comply — reflects a stark conundrum: How much leverage does the United States really have over the Afghan leader?

<snip>
The argument that we could pull out of Afghanistan if Karzai doesn’t do what we say is stupid. We couldn’t get the Pakistanis to fight if we leave Afghanistan; we couldn’t accomplish what we’ve set out to do. And Karzai knows that.
<snip - later they discuss the limited levers>

One lever, they said, would be to shift money from Mr. Karzai’s central government to provincial leaders who perform better than their national counterparts. And although a complete withdrawal of American troops is not considered an option, Mr. Obama might endorse a partial withdrawal that would lead to a more limited counterinsurgency strategy initially advocated by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/12/world/asia/12karzai.html?hp

It really seems that Karzai will fail without us, but if he fails, there will be gains for the Taliban or chaos. Kerry seems to be pushing Karzai towards reform - as everyone else is. The problem is whether Karzai even has the ability to clean things up - or if the worst people he has allied to him are too powerful to push out. But, I do think Kerry needs to be careful that he is not labeled as making excuses for Karzai, which I don't think he has done yet - but his positive, though qualified, comments after Karzai agreed to a run off come close. No one who didn't watch SFRC hearings realizes that he was one of the first to question the corruption, the drugs, and the ability to govern.

[Inuca]

3. "Obama rejects all Afghan war options" is the first

headline I saw as I went online this morning. OTOH it is also said that he will announce a decision very soon after he gets back to the States on the 19th. Maybe I am looking at all this in too simplistic a way, but I do not see how the two pieces of information mesh together. And I agree, all of this IS quite extraordiary. And Obama is taking huge risks.

On edit: just saw this on Kos http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/11/11/803574/-Seymour-Hersh-on-Obamas-decision-. You guys probably already saw it, but I am still away and out of "TV touch". "The president finally saying "I am taking control"". As I said above, huge risks (and guts + sense of responsibility to match, it seems) for BO.

[karynnj]

5. I think that this really a continuation of the "let's pause to define goals,

policy and test the assumptions" phase. It is very reasonable to look at the likely way the scenario plays out to determine if it includes an exit strategy. I think many on DU are leaping to seeing this as the beginning of withdrawal or that the decision has been made not to add troops.

That was my first reaction last night, but now I'm not sure it says that. A narrower way to look at it is that he has rejected 4 detailed plans because none show him how this ends or he is unhappy with the policy or the length of time and expected losses it entails. The way at least CNN is portraying it is that he has asked the national security team to return to the drawing board and craft a few more options. (Caveat - we all know that CNN seemed to have a neo-con leaning.) The Daily Kos is right in that it clearly is the President taking charge - he has rejected, not accepted, the preferred plans of his team and the military. That does take guts.

But, it could be that he is rejecting the Biden type plan because it might have no end, in addition to becoming less and less accurate as we lose people who trust us and are willing to take risks to give us intelligence. He could also be rejecting the full blown McChrystal plan because of the reasons Kerry outlined, or possibly out of suspicion that that increase will lead to more increases because as people said in the SFRC, reading from the COIN literature, far more than 40,000 are needed.

The Eikenberry cables seem to me to be bigger news and they likely could be already influencing Obama. Based on absolutely nothing, I wonder if the NYT mention of a possible level being that the US moved money from Karzai to the "local governments" where they are providing some level of governance might be the way Obama goes if he reaches the point where he sees Karzai as not a viable partner. The difficulty there is that "local government" in most places likely equals warlords. In a way, this returns us to how we defeated the Taliban in the first place - outsourcing to local warlords. It might though create major areas of Afghanistan where the Taliban could be kept out. The problem is that many warlords might be nearly as bad. It would seem that as Karzai had little authority outside Kabul with all the NATO force behind him, without them he likely would lose more authority or power altogether. The problem here is that this leaves nothing to stop the Taliban from gaining more power in Southern Afghanistan.

All I know is that it hurts my head to think about it.

[Inuca]

13. Hurts my head too

I think that after Karzai's "re-election " we moved from "no good options" to "all terrible options". Finding the least (hopefully) horrid one is not an enviable task. My confusion, based on what I read yesterday (and nothing since, did not get a chance) was as to how you can go back to the drawing board and still announce a decision in a few days. We shall see, probably soon....

[wisteria]

4. I am going to withhold all opinions on this until Obama makes his decision.

This leak is as bad as the CBS leak that went in the other direction. I am not saying I do not trust any one persons reporting, just that the news has swung from one end to the other. Frankly, I do not know what to believe right now.

[beachmom]

7. Well, it's a "leaking" war, and unlike the leaks in the opposite direction,

there was NO WH denial.

So I tend to believe these stories as coming from inside the WH more than the leaked stories coming from the Pentagon.

Still, I totally agree with you that we need to wait for the actual announcement.

[Inuca]

14. I tend to agree

This leak seemed to have more heft to it. ALmost like a semi-official announcement.

[fedupinBushcountry]

6. Exit Strategy

http://washingtonindependent.com/67521/inside-this-mornings-white-house-afghanistan-meeting-anger-with-eikenberry-beef-with-mcchrystal">Despite the dissatisfaction with Eikenberry’s apparent leak, according to the staffer, Obama “demanded” an exit strategy for the war

[beachmom]

8. Thanks! Also, I was thinking the same thing as Andrew Sullivan:

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/11/eikenberrys-stand.html#more

I suspect Eikenberry has given Obama the opening he needs to leave Afghanistan and refuse to commit more young Americans to the defense of a corrupt government and the prosecution of an unending war that no longer serves a core national interest for the US. If Obama does that, it will take enormous courage. It will reveal a strength of character and judgment that America and the world now need.

One other intuition: Obama has recently clearly been pondering the dreadful responsibility of sending soldiers to war. From the decision to witness the return of coffins at Dover to the un-scheduled solitary trip to Arlington and this week's emotionally cathartic ceremony at Fort Hood: these events, it seems to me, would concentrate any serious, ethical president's mind.

And I suspect Bob Gates is not that far apart from the minimalist position.

What Obama has been doing lately struck me as things John Kerry would have done had he been President (and something he does already as Senator from Mass.):

1. Going to Dover
2. Unscheduled stop at the graves of the fallen from Iraq & Afganistan at Arlington Cemetery (the CBS reporter tweeted that a "somber looking" Obama visited the graves).
3. Finally, Obama's extraordinary speech at Ft. Hood, which many think is his best speech since the Inauguration, showing that he gets what is at stake but also what has been sacrificed.

[wisteria]

11. What about the need to have a stable Afghaistan in order to pursue our interests in Pakistan? n/t

[beachmom]

16. From what I understand, that is Joe Biden's argument.

Too much energy on Afghanistan when the problem is in Pakistan.

[karynnj]

9. This really is interesting -

Though even reading it several times, I'm not sure exactly who the people are who are furious with him, other than obviously McChrystal. I checked the White House site and found the NSC contained:

"The NSC is chaired by the President. Its regular attendees (both statutory and non-statutory) are the Vice President, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Defense, and the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the statutory military advisor to the Council, and the Director of National Intelligence is the intelligence advisor. The Chief of Staff to the President, Counsel to the President, and the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy are invited to attend any NSC meeting. The Attorney General and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget are invited to attend meetings pertaining to their responsibilities. The heads of other executive departments and agencies, as well as other senior officials, are invited to attend meetings of the NSC when appropriate"

It also looks like this triggered the President's call for an exit plan and the rejection of all current plans. I wonder now if someone leaked Obama's decision to get it out there because the cables were out there.

Another article goes after who leaked them. A link from there argues that the leak really hurts Eikenberry, as it greatly harms his relationship with both the Karzai government and the military. (Here's the main article - http://www.cnas.org/blogs/abumuqawama/2009/11/throwing-karl-under-bus.html )

A link leads to this conclusion:

Well whoever leaked the fact that Karl Eikenberry is deeply skeptical of the effects of a troop increase in Afghanistan certainly had the desired effect as far as the Washington debate was concerned, but they also sure as hell made life very difficult for Karl Eikenberry. This is bound to strain Eikenberry's relationship with Hamid Karzai and the U.S. military.

Within U.S. military circles, expect grumbling about who, exactly, was in charge during the years (2005-2007) in which the war in Afghanistan took a turn for the worse. The answer? Karl Eikenberry, of course. Is that unfair? Absolutely. Sarah Chayes describes what took place in those years as a Pakistani invasion of Afghanistan by proxy, and Eikenberry had no hope of resisting that with his meager resources. But when compared with those of his predecessor and successor -- David Barno and David McKiernan, respectively -- Eikenberry's term in Afghanistan is spoken of in less than glowing terms, and some within the military might start blaming Eikenberry for having helped get us into this mess in the first place and now standing in the way of getting us out.

All of that, though, is minor compared with the problems EIkenberry now faces with the Karzai regime. Last week Michael Semple bluntly stated that the most important dynamic in Afghanistan was the relationship between the "international community" (for which we should read, he said: "United States of America") and the government of Afghanistan. Well how is that going to work now? It's now common knowledge that Karl Eikenberry -- the U.S. ambassador -- thinks you, Hamid Karzai, lead a collection of corrupt and ineffective goons unworthy of further U.S. investment! Whoever leaked these classified cables has cut the knees out from underneath the most important U.S. representative in Kabul!

All of this is to say that Karl Eikenberry -- whatever you think of the man -- got royally screwed by some short-sighted jerks in the 202 area code. The cables had already been deliberated upon by the president and his advisors, but that wasn't enough, so some idiots decided to also make the cables public knowledge. Now whatever U.S. policy goes forward -- counterinsurgency, counter-terror, withdrawal, rape and pillage, whatever -- is going to suffer for the soured relationship between our man in Kabul and the government of Afghanistan.

http://www.cnas.org/blogs/abumuqawama/2009/11/throwing-karl-under-bus.html

That article is eye opening. It sounded like Eikenberry, thanked by Obama at the same time he thanked Kerry, had done a lot of the work with Karzai. In the other link, Laura Rozen points to Biden and Emmanuel. (Rozen seemed a big HRC fan in the past)

[Inuca]

15. A late night update at the link says the teleconference

never took place :shrug:

[beachmom]

19. Spencer has now completely retracted the story:

http://washingtonindependent.com/67521/inside-this-mornings-white-house-afghanistan-meeting-anger-with-eikenberry-beef-with-mcchrystal

RETRACTED

Update, 8:50 a.m.: I am retracting this post, published yesterday, titled “Inside This Morning’s White House Afghanistan Meeting: Anger With Eikenberry, ‘Beef’ With McChrystal.”

My original source for the post stands by the account provided. The individual, a National Security Council staffer who spoke on condition of anonymity, has provided truthful and verified information on past stories, and so I trusted the source for this one. Elements of the account have been subsequently borne out: yesterday afternoon, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said that President Obama will ask his Afghanistan-Pakistan advisers to provide him with an exit strategy for the eight-year war, which is congruent with but not identical to my source’s information that Obama has asked the team to derive timetables for troop withdrawal.

But there are greater problems with the post. For one, the source was not actually present for the video teleconference that is the post’s central scene, and passed information to me second-hand. Furthermore, not only has the White House’s Tommy Vietor denied, on the record, that Ambassador Karl Eikenberry participated in a video teleconference yesterday morning, but the other two individuals I named as being present for the meeting — the inspector generals for Iraq and Afghanistan — have, through representatives, denied being present. I cannot subsequently stand by this account.

From the start, the post should have a) more clearly indicated that my source wasn’t present at the meeting; b) more clearly indicated that the account provided was single-sourced; and c) verified the information provided before publication. My enthusiasm for a hot story outpaced my professional judgment. For that I take full responsibility, retract the story and issue a full apology for its publication.

The good part, though (Obama asking for an exit strategy), has been independently verified.

[beachmom]

10. More details. It came down to Karzai not dealing with his brother:

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/78813.html

Eikenberry wrote the cable last Friday after a meeting in which he pressed Karzai to send his brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, the political power in southern Kandahar province who allegedly has links to the drug trade, anywhere outside the country, and to embrace a program of overhauls, known as the "Afghanistan Compact," that was drafted by U.S. and Afghan officials, three U.S. officials said.

Karzai rejected the demands, the officials said.

The Afghan leader is also under U.S. pressure to select senior officials for his new government from a U.S. list of 40 individuals whom the Obama administration considers competent and clean, said a diplomat in Kabul who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

"There is tremendous pressure on Karzai that is piling up," the diplomat said. "They (U.S. officials) basically said there should be no place for warlords or cronies."

Among those thought to be on the list is Sarwar Ahmedzai, one of the candidates who challenged Karzai in the fraud-marred August presidential election.

Ahmedzai told McClatchy that Karzai's advisers met with him on Thursday and offered him a cabinet post, but that he turned down the offer.

"I don't think this man is going to last five years," said Ahmedzai, who voiced concerns that Karzai would be pushed out by the U.S. if he failed to address international concerns over endemic corruption.

"It's not easy to eradicate corruption in five or six years," he said. "Corruption has taken over every single institution, including the private entities."

The whole article discusses the "leaking war". It basically pits senior military officials vs. Biden & Rahm Emanuel. I suspected this. Meanwhile, the President hasn't made his decision.

[wisteria]

12. I think we go to far in actually telling Karzai whom to place in his cabinet and whom not to.

He is the leader of Afghanistan, and we are not out to "own" Afghanistan. I agree with a need for open government,and no corruption and even close monitoring of his brother, but I can see where-if this account is true-Karzai is uncomfortable being forced into these choices and will not go along. It makes him look like a patsy to the US instead of the leader he is suppose to be in the eyes of his people.

[beachmom]

17. Except the Afghan people are sick and tired of the corruption. That is why they

originally went along with Taliban rule.

Our troops are there essentially to protect Karzai & his government. He should do something in return. Instead he has grown more and more defiant (see his absurd interview with Jim Lehrer this week). Now you could argue that that is not a healthy relationship. Of course, that is an argument for withdrawal.

[karynnj]

18. I agree - everyone from Kerry to McChrystal has said we can't win this for a corrupt government

It is not a good sign that Karzai has become defiant in defending his corrupt government. That might be why the Eikenberry cable was leaked. That cable is devastating in its impact on many levels. One level is that if Karzai now makes the major changes that have to be made and kicks his brother out, the cable will be used as proof that he is a puppet with the US pulling the strings. Karzai was already viewed as a US puppet, but might reinforce that above a threshold that Afghans could tolerate. I would guess that if there was any hope that Karzai had any intention of really cleaning house the people rumoured to leak it, would not have done so.

I think that this does lead to either withdrawal or trying to work with many local leaders, which would have to be a logistical nightmare and those leaders are often warlords, many of whom make Karzai look acceptable in comparison, which is not easy to do.