[R-G] AEI and Afghanistan: Listen to Petraeus!

[Macdonald Stainsby]

The American Enterprise Institute is founded by and continues to receive 
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much of the large environmental organizations throughout North America.

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newspapers are being taken out to slowly "brand" Pew-funded, pro-market 
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tar sands. The Pew funded groups will lobby to be the sole, back room 
closed door negotiators.



Anthony Fenton wrote:
> AEI and Afghanistan: Listen to Petraeus!
> posted by Robert Dreyfuss on 02/19/2009 @ 09:23am
> http://www.thenation.com/blogs/dreyfuss/409838/aei_and_afghanistan_listen_to_petraeus_
> 
> Across the left and among progressives, there is angst about President  
> Obama's decision to add 17,000 troops to the war in Afghanistan. Among  
> neoconservatives and the right -- judging from a session that I  
> attended yesterday at the American Enterprise Institute -- there is  
> angst of another kind. They're worried that Afghanistan is a "war that  
> we may walk away from," as Danielle Pletka, AEI's vice president for  
> foreign defense policy studies put it. And they're very worried that  
> the Obama administration doesn't have the stomach to pursue "victory"  
> there. Lets hope they're right.
> 
> True, Obama said he's ordering the dispatch of 17,000 troops to  
> bolster the 36,000 US forces already in country. But there's lots of  
> room for a new policy to emerge, since virtually every part of the US  
> national security apparatus is conducting a review of the war,  
> including one led at the White House by Bruce Riedel, who served as  
> Obama's top adviser on Afghanistan-Pakistan during the campaign. There  
> are few doves doing the reviews, but it isn't at all clear that  
> they'll endorse the "long war" strategy pushed by General McKiernan,  
> the US commander in Afghanistan, who's predicting that he'll need tens  
> of thousands more troops who'll have to fight a war that might last  
> five years or more. And, at AEI at least, there is great concern that  
> the left and anti-war Democrats will convince Obama not to fight that  
> war.
> 
> First to speak at AEI was Tom Donnelly, the thinktank's top defense  
> analyst and former deputy executive director of the Project for a New  
> American Century. (PNAS, of course, was the hawkish combine that  
> pushed hard for the war in Iraq in the 1990s, with the backing of Dick  
> Cheney, Doug Feith, and Paul Wolfowitz.) Donnelly complained that  
> public opinion and "elite opinion" are rapidly shifting against the  
> war. The notion that Afghanistan is "Obama's Vietnam" is gaining  
> currency, spreading from the left into the mainstream media. And he  
> noted that polls show that only 34 percent of Americans support an  
> escalation in Afghanistan, while an equal number supports getting out.  
> The war will be a "critical test for Barack Obama," he said, who will  
> be "tested by the hard-core left in the Democratic Party."
> 
> Donnelly also slammed the Obama team for "the dumbing down of  
> Afghanistan strategy." He was sharply critical of reports that the  
> administration is planning to announce limited goals in the war,  
> breaking with the Bush administration's plans for imposing democracy  
> and American-style values on that ultraconservative state. He  
> criticized Obama for the apparently unpardonable sin of wanting " to  
> reclaim a larger role for the White House and civilian decision- 
> making" on war, seemingly alarmed that the military, and General  
> Petraeus in particular, won't be getting carte blanche. Donnelly also  
> doesn't like the idea of using diplomacy, economic development, and  
> other aspects of US influence. "This administration has a theory of  
> smart power, which is an attempt to demilitarize policy," he said. The  
> civilians at the Defense Department, he said, seem to have "no clear  
> commitment to victory in Afghanistan."
> 
> Donnelly said that the 17,000 troops Obama has authorized are only a  
> "down payment" for a much larger force needed to win.
> 
> Next up was Gary Schmitt, AEI's director of advanced strategic studies  
> and, from 1997 to 2005, the executive director of the Project for a  
> New American Century. Schmitt's focus was NATO, and he bemoaned that  
> aside from the US, the UK, Canada, and the Netherlands, our allies  
> aren't willing to fight. They're just doing their alliance duty, he  
> said. "Most of our allies are there because they think it's a good  
> thing to do for the alliance," he said. "They're not dedicated to the  
> idea of Afghanistan as a key strategic mission." Still, their role is  
> useful, he noted, since if they left they'd be hard to replace with US  
> forces. And it is good for NATO. "Fifteen years ago, you'd get a big  
> belly laugh if you said that today they [NATO] would be involved in a  
> ground war in Asia."
> 
> The final speaker was Fred Kagan, one of the principal architects of  
> the 2007-2008 surge in Iraq and a former professor of military history  
> who is now a resident scholar at AEI. Like Donnelly, Kagan was upset  
> at what appear to be efforts by Obama and Co. to "define success  
> down," that is, to come up with drastically limited goals for the war.  
> He ridiculed what he called "Holbookian hyperventilating" about how  
> hard the task in Afghanistan is, referring to Obama envoy Richard  
> Holbrooke's recent comments that the Afghan war is a lot harder than  
> Iraq.
> 
> Most importantly, perhaps, Kagan slammed those who believe that  
> solving the Afghan crisis means dealing with Pakistan and viewing the  
> war in a regional context that includes India, Iran, and other  
> countries. That's likely to be the core of Obama's strategy, but Kagan  
> was having none of it. "I question the truism that success in  
> Afghanistan is contingent on success in Pakistan," he said.
> 
> They key question, said Kagan, is whether Obama will do what Petraeus  
> wants, or will he listen to those pesky liberals and critics. "Is  
> President Obama going to listen to the military commander who turned  
> one war [Iraq] around. or is he going to listen to other advice?"
> 
> To make sure that Obama does the right thing, according to AEI's  
> catechism, next week the thinktank is bringing in none other than John  
> McCain, according to Pletka, who will speak at AEI. It appears that  
> McCain -- who, umm, lost decisively to Obama -- will take a strong  
> stand for AEI-style victory in Iraq, making a frontal challenge to the  
> Obama administration as a sort of official spokesman for the hawks.
> 
> Here's AEI's breathless preview of McCain's appearance next Wednesday:
> 
>      The narrative of last year's U.S. presidential election focused  
> on two different wars: in Iraq and Afghanistan. Democratic candidates,  
> including President Obama, Vice President Biden, and Secretary of  
> State Clinton, argued that the Iraq war had distracted from the more  
> important fight in Afghanistan. Now in office, President Obama finds  
> his administration at the center of a hot debate on the future of the  
> war in Afghanistan, and the United States at a strategic crossroads.
> 
>      Will the Obama administration support a counterinsurgency  
> strategy in Afghanistan designed to achieve meaningful long-term  
> stability, or will success be defined in much more limited terms,  
> saving the United States from a difficult reassessment and retooling  
> for which there is little appetite? Most importantly, can the U.S.  
> mission--with or without additional troops--succeed without a new  
> strategy on the ground that confronts the growing Afghan insurgency?
> 
>      Three and a half years after his seminal AEI address on "Winning  
> the War in Iraq," Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) will deliver a major  
> policy address at AEI on the path to victory in Afghanistan.
> 
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