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Obama’s Goldilocks Strategy (Guest Voice)
Dec 3rd, 2009 | 8 responses
WASHINGTON — President Obama has bought himself some time on Afghanistan and lived up to his promise to seek policies that fit into no one’s philosophical pigeonholes. He has also split his own party, diminished the enthusiasm of his natural allies, yet earned himself no lasting credit with his domestic adversaries.
By these measures, Obama’s surge-and-wind-down strategy is both gutsy and politically risky.
This view flies in the face of the common description of his Tuesday night address as a carefully balanced political appeal. There was calculation in the speech but it had to do with winning support for his policy, not with electoral advantage. On the matter of helping the election chances of congressional Democrats next year, the speech was a net loser.
Obama was trying to identify middle ground by offering a Goldilocks strategy: neither too hawkish nor too dovish, but just right. He pointedly reassured doves that he had no interest in a “dramatic and open-ended escalation of our war effort,” while insisting to hawks that “our security is at stake in Afghanistan and Pakistan.”
He argued that the only way to speed our departure from Afghanistan was to speed the entry of 30,000 troops now to “reverse the Taliban’s momentum.” In the Vietnam years, many spoke of a “win-or-get-out” choice. Obama’s is a “stop-losing-to-get-out” plan.
But in our current political moment, those who seek middle ground are typically crushed. This is especially true in foreign policy, a field powerfully politicized during George W. Bush’s presidency. Politics no longer stops at the water’s edge; that’s where it begins.
Obama spoke longingly of ending the “rancor and cynicism and partisanship that has in recent times poisoned our national discourse.” In light of the reaction to his speech, one can only say: Good luck.
Even Democrats once interventionist in their foreign policy views have been turned off by the overreach of the Bush years. Howard Berman, D-Calif., the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, was revealing — and honest — when he told Politico before Obama’s speech: “I’m not as prone to jumping into wars as I used to be.”
What Obama said at West Point about Afghanistan would have been uncontroversial before the long occupation of Iraq. Now, half or more of Obama’s own party wishes he would wind the Afghan war down. There will likely be no congressional votes on funding the new surge until the spring because Democratic leaders, particularly in the House, know how much opposition there is in their ranks.
But the GOP’s response was tepid. Many Republicans welcomed the troop commitments, but then moved quickly to the attack, especially on Obama’s insistence that we could begin to withdraw forces by July 2011.
“If you tell the enemy when you’re leaving, it emboldens your enemies and dispirits your friends,” Sen. John McCain told CBS on Wednesday morning, encapsulating a common Republican critique. Others were annoyed at Obama’s criticism of Bush for neglecting Afghanistan in favor of Iraq.
Note what’s going on here: Obama’s efforts to persuade enough skeptics — especially in his own party — by placing a limit on how long we will stay and by trying to separate Afghanistan from Iraq earned him only reproofs from the other party. Heads, Obama loses with the doves; tails, he loses with the hawks. There is not a large market for owls claiming the wisdom of the middle way.
Yet the paradox is that by absorbing all this political pain, Obama will succeed in his short-term goal of gathering sufficient support to keep the battle in Afghanistan going and give his surge a chance. If he’s right that progress can be made quickly and that troops can begin to withdraw, political opposition will recede. If the policy fails or stalls, he will have hell to pay.
It helps Obama that Democrats are split not in two but in three: A small number of hawks who agree with his decision; a large number of doves who oppose it; and a sizable group uneasy with Obama’s choice but respectful of how and why he made it. “God, I hope he’s right” were the words I heard from several Democrats, expressing precisely the mixture of faith, hope and doubt that characterizes this politically decisive group.
These Democrats know that the politics of this are bad unless the policy turns out to be good. They are praying that Obama knows what he’s doing. For now, they will grant him his year and a half.
This column is copyrighted and licensed to run in full on TMV. (c) 2009, Washington Post Writers Group
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8 Responses to “Obama’s Goldilocks Strategy (Guest Voice)”
Not even the smarmiest of smarm queens on NPR would say what Dionne said!
[gag]
Well, at least he's overloaded the subject so badly that nobody will bother with the stupid “balanced” …
“An astute, balanced, clever, deft compromise, a nuanced [of course] and refined Goldilocks strategy of gravitas, with the wisdom of Solomon.”
(Actually, if this were July rather than December, that's what the chatterers would be chatting.)
Goldilocks got run out of the house or eaten by the bears depending on which version of the story you hear, hopefully your comparison will turn out better, but it does seem like a goldilocks ending is a possibility without larger troop numbers. $40,000 was McCrystal's medium risk number, Obama fell short of the middle ground by 1/4th.
Have to update my numbers, Obama is not quite as short as it seems:
Obama to let Pentagon deploy even more troops, but numbers remain murky.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ar…)
So I revise my criticism and say he is only 1/8th short, but add that he is not being entirely upfront about his level of commitment for political reasons.
I try to give credit where it is due. O really impressed me on this one. I agree gutsy, so gutsy that I am sure some Dems are pulling their hair out anticipating the 2010 election cycle. Now if he can tame a runaway Nancy and Harry HCR bill and put on a surge to try and find some reasonable Reps (I know, the party of NO) to slow down and create a bill with a Goldilock's flavor and a smaller dollar cost. If not, the costs added to the war costs might cripple all our financial future.
The speech was unimpressive, and in fact had a number of defects or flaws. He's among the last people we can take seriously about being concerned about costs. (The only kernel of truth in his reluctance to spend on item X is that it in theory is a constraint on, and “costs” and takes money from, spending on preferred vote-buying item Y.)
That he made a good or “the right” choice can be claimed fairly easily. We couldn't flee (which is what we'd be doing if we left with any energy put into the “departure” part of the departure process, including a prompt departure decision). His choice to commit more troops (to boost our chances of inflicting good and heavy losses on the enemy, or at least to reduce the losses we are sustaining now) was right, though it will expose the farther-left and certainly the extremists, but they are wrong. We can't and we should not flee. That we'll leave (or that most of our troops will leave), we already know; we need to leave on our terms, not the enemy's. (I don't care if some have heard that before about Iraq, or earlier wars.)
“the costs added to the war costs might cripple all our financial future”
In addition to opposing any troop commitment (and often wanting us to flee), liberal Democrats are like others on the far left right now, wanting much more, not overdue limits on, spending, particularly by the federal government to “create jobs.” (To what extent Obama is doing this silly “jobs forum,” the grand exhibit of proof that the “stimulus” so far has not created vast numbers of new jobs, as a sop to these people is an open question.) There's even a “jobs now” caucus not content with a childish demand for a title with its choice of words, but often written with (believe it or not — they may be serious) an exclamation mark and possibly (seriously) writing one or more words in all capitals. Ooooooo….
http://www.house.gov/apps/list/press/il01_rush/…
“Goldilocks got run out of the house or eaten by the bears depending on which version of the story you hear”
She's just avoiding public appearances now that we've learned about the sex tape she made.