Obey compares Obama to Nixon, gives him a year

Congressman Dave Obey, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said today that he is giving President Obama's foreign policy in South Asia a year,

...House Appropriations Committee Chairman Dave Obey said he was “very dubious” about the chances of success in the region and wants a “fish or cut bait” assessment in a year’s time that will determine how long the U.S. continues on this path.

“It gives the president one year to demonstrate what he can do,” said the Wisconsin Democrat. “It gives him ample resources.”

Much as the administration may wince, Obey draws a parallel between today and 40 years ago, when he first came to Congress in the spring of 1969 and gave Richard Nixon a year to make progress in Vietnam.

“The president feels obligated to give it a shot, and we’ll help him give it a shot for a year,” Obey said. “At the end of the year, I want to have a hard-nosed, realistic evaluation based on the performance standards we’re talking about.”

Toward this end, the bill requires the White House to report back to Congress prior to its 2011 budget next winter, assessing whether the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan are demonstrating sufficient progress to continue Obama’s policies as laid out in March, when the president made new U.S. troop commitments to the war against Taliban forces there.

Five standards are listed, including the performance of Pakistani forces with respect to counterinsurgency operations and the ability of the government to control the territory within its borders — where the Taliban has already made significant inroads.

At the same time, the structure of the bill seems certain to frustrate Gen. David Petraeus, commander of the U.S. Central Command, who shares many of the same goals but demands broad power for himself to try to achieve them.

I guess Obey wasn't paying attention to Obama when he said that he was planning on sending troops to Pakistan, or following the debate when Obama promised to combat Al Qaeda in 60 different countries?

Muddling through ain't no way to conduct a war

The Politico has an excellent article today about the problems confronting the new president with some speculation on how the Obama Administration might handle them. The most interesting part was the section on Afghanistan:

DOES HE REALLY THINK AFGHANISTAN IS WINNABLE?

The new president has strongly signaled that he thinks the answer is yes. But neither his rhetoric nor his policy proposals so far have fully reckoned with the implications.

If he intends to win in Afghanistan, he is not going to be a Peacemaker President. To the contrary, he is committing himself to being just as much of a War President as George W. Bush, certainly for the first term and very possibly for a potential second.

Most military experts think a decisive win in Afghanistan — as opposed to a muddle-through strategy leading to a gradual withdrawal —will involve a major surge in troops and a willingness to tolerate high costs and high casualties.

...Joe Biden’s first trip abroad as vice President-elect included a stop in Afghanistan. When he returned home, he told Obama: “The truth is that things are going to get tougher in Afghanistan before they’re going to get better.”

If that’s true, Obama may in the end find muddle-through more attractive than victory.

"Muddle-through" is a recipe for disaster. War cannot be won unless there is a commitment to victory. "Muddle-through" was the formula Johnson used in Vietnam and it was the formula Bush used in Iraq before he finally committed enough troops and resources to win. We have been muddling through for far too long in Afghanistan and we run the risk of throwing the whole theatre of operations away. If Afghanistan is lost, or even if the deterioration continues without resolution, we run the risk of greater destabilization of neighboring (and nuclear) Pakistan.

The debate itself

I haven't read the coverage at anyone's blog or seen a news report yet. But here are some quick impressions from last night:

1) I think Senator Obama did what he had to do, which was not seem like a total neophyte on foreign policy.

2) I think most of Senator McCain's anecdotes are about twenty years past their freshness date, and the jokes probably were funny to three people in Georgetown. Sorry, but it's the truth.

3) Senator McCain did control most of the evening, despite Senator Obama's decision to go on the attack early and often. However, I wonder if McCain's slowness in the beginning was the lasting impression.

4) I think any extended discussion of the economy at this time hurts Senator McCain more than Obama, but I thought McCain scored on the pork barrel spending and taxes.

That being said, one thing really stuck out that students of foreign policy and historians might want to note. When Senator Obama referred to Venezuela as a "rogue nation", was that the new Axis of Evil? How many of the 60 nations where Al Qaeda operates will Obama invade? And then there's Pakistan:

Number three, we've got to deal with Pakistan, because Al Qaida and the Taliban have safe havens in Pakistan, across the border in the northwest regions, and although, you know, under George Bush, with the support of Senator McCain, we've been giving them $10 billion over the last seven years, they have not done what needs to be done to get rid of those safe havens.

And until we do, Americans here at home are not going to be safe.

So basically Obama wants to take the same tack with nuclear-armed and instable Pakistan that President Bush did after September 11. Either Pakistan is for us or against us. War with Pakistan? Or just a Nixon-like cross-border incursion into Pakistan like the "Secret War" in Cambodia?

Update! Correction: Obama referred to Iran and Venezuela as "rogue nations." The Axis of Rogue Nations?