Will Obama Reject More Troops in Afghanistan?

Is President Obama seriously considering overruling Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s coming request for more troops in Afghanistan or is this a White House head fake? Over the weekend, Obama suggested in an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that he was “skeptical” that more troops would meet the goal of defeating Al Qaeda, which he noted was the original focus of the Afghan mission. In an interview last night with PBS’s Charlie Rose, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel seemed to echo his boss’s wariness about more troops. “Everybody wants to rush to one thing: ‘I need more troops,’ ” Emanuel said. “Our goal . . .  [is] to make sure that there’s not a safe place for Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda allies to do harm to America here at home and our interests around the world . . . Some people think there are different means to doing that.” Asked directly if Obama would overrule McChrystal, Emanuel replied, “This is one of the biggest decisions the president’s going to make.”

Even if poll numbers show the public is rapidly losing faith in the Afghanistan effort, it never looks good when a president overrules a general on the ground—and the White House knows this. In recent days, we’ve started to see hints of how it might try to avoid the backlash. One big talking point: the Afghan government—namely President Hamid Karzai—is less dependable as a partner. Yesterday White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters that factors that had led to the administration’s AfPak strategy last spring had changed, namely the outcome of the Afghan presidential election, which continues to be disputed. “You can’t look at this situation without looking at the elections, and obviously, the outcome right now is still one that is being evaluated,” Gibbs said. “Obviously, we have to have a strong national partner there . . . That’s one of the things the president is looking at to assess.”  Echoed Emanuel: “If you look at the history of counterinsurgency, you have to have a reliable partner to achieve the goal throughout the country.” According to MSNBC’s First Read, another spin from the White House is that McChrystal’s report was written before all the problems with the Afghan elections—therefore painting McChrystal’s already bad assessment even more dismal.

But where does blaming Karzai and the Afghan government actually get the administration? (And, by the way, didn’t it see this coming? For months, there have been doubts at the White House about Karzai’s leadership. A senior administration official admitted as much when briefing reporters on the eve of Karzai’s visit to Washington last spring.)  On one hand, the White House could be forcing the Afghans to get their act together and buy some public support for efforts to build up the police force there—not unlike we did in Iraq. But by putting the blame on the Afghans, it also could buy Obama some patience with the public on another troop surge—again, not unlike Iraq. One thing is for sure: this public back-and-forth, particularly the dissent we’ve been hearing at the top levels of the White House, probably isn’t helping the administration build public confidence in whatever decision Obama ultimately makes.