Presidential Strategic Persuasion on Afghanistan
9th September 2009
SWJ points to a 23 minute interview of Secretary Gates with Al-Jazeera with a focus upon Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran. Gates is consistent with recent prior statements, but most particularly notes that in his view, America will not withdraw from Afghanistan, will remove all troops and bases from Iraq by next year according to treaty, and has great faith in Pakistan as a partner. Gates also suggests he hasn’t made up his mind about the exact change in strategy with Afghanistan.
This is a powerful interview that contains many important persuasion points for President Obama. If you read, for example, the comments at the Washington Post on this Gates interview, you can already see the early response of the Left and its concern about the Long War. It’s hard to imagine that this Gates interview is going over well with progressives. How can Obama stay with Gates on this and not start a riot in a key political constituency?
Gates provided some likely lines of persuasion. He frankly accepted or admitted mistakes in past American policy going back as far as the Reagan withdrawal from Afghanistan following the defeat of the Soviet Union. Thus, Obama’s own “conservative” Defense Secretary acknowledges not simply that things could have gone better, but that mistakes were made.
I predict that Mr. Obama will employ this as justification for his continuing support of the Long War. He will castigate Republican errors, including the fabulous Mr. Reagan whom Obama himself has praised in the past. These criticisms will have to assure the activist Left, although a common sense analysis of Obama’s actions clearly grieves progressives.
This is a triangulating move in the grand style of Mr. Clinton. It appears that Mr. Obama can assuage these key allies with rhetorical attacks (for now) as opposed to significant, observable policy change.
[It will also be interesting as hell to see how different countries react to this interview, especially in Iran, Iraq, Israel, and Afghanistan. If Gates is right in his analysis, there should be fairly positive, if somewhat private response. I cannot believe that Mr. Obama let this interview go without his support and he must have a strong feeling about how it will play. Get ready to go long on the Long War.]