McChrystal shot himself in the foot Nato's top commander may be an able general — but as a soldier-politician, he's a MacArthur-sized disaster
* By Simon Tisdall * Published: 00:00 June 24, 2010 * Gulf News
US Special Representative Richard Holbrooke and US General Stanley McChrystal
* Obama said he did not make the decision over any disagreement in policy or "out of any sense of personal insult." * Image Credit: AFP
The Afghan pressure cooker, that great reducer of reputations, may have consumed its most senior victim with Tuesday's ominous White House summons to US General Stanley McChrystal to explain mocking comments about Barack Obama and his top advisers. Like an erring schoolboy up before the beak, Nato's top commander in Afghanistan will be asked to demonstrate to Obama, in person, why he should not be expelled. It could be a tough sell.
Politically speaking, Obama would probably be ill-advised to sack the general. McChrystal was, after all, Obama's choice after he fired his predecessor, the able General David McKiernan, for reasons of expediency. A high-level rift with the top brass would not only intensify doubts about Obama's conduct of the war as it reaches a critical juncture. It would also revive questions, constantly recycled by Republican opponents, about his fitness to be commander-in-chief.
That said, from a personal point of view Obama may be severely tempted to give McChrystal the bum's rush. It's not the first time the two men have crossed swords. They have a history. Last autumn, while Obama was agonising over his seemingly interminable Afghan strategy review, McChrystal pre-empted the White House by allowing his own assessment of the war effort to be published.
McChrystal's analysis was grim. The war could be lost, he warned, unless a big new effort was undertaken including the deployment of 40,000 additional combat troops in tandem with a "civilian surge" in diplomatic and financial assistance. In a series of interviews, he said half measures would not work. "You can't hope to contain the fire by letting just half the building burn." His outspokenness was seen as a brash bid to force Obama's hand.
This extraordinarily public policy tussle came to a head in London in October when McChrystal addressed the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Rejecting the "containment" policy option favoured by Vice-President Joe Biden, he said such an approach would produce "Chaos-istan" and he would not support it. The US needed to escalate militarily, adopt his counterinsurgency strategy, and hurry up about it.
Obama reacted by carpeting McChrystal in a hastily convened, face-to-face meeting aboard Air Force One. In the event, the president went along with the main thrust of McChrystal's recommendations, agreeing to send 30,000 more troops. But a lack of empathy, and possibly trust, between the two men and their respective camps had been clearly established. They did not get on and the relationship was not to improve in the months that followed.
Principal targets
In January a row erupted over leaked cable written by the US ambassador to Kabul, Karl Eikenberry, in which he, like Biden, argued against the surge. Eikenberry and Biden are two principal targets for disparagement in Rolling Stone magazine's report. But James Jones, Obama's national security adviser, Richard Holbrooke, his special envoy, and unidentified "wimps in the White House" also get it in the neck. McChrystal is said by aides to be personally "disappointed" in Obama.
Banter or not, this amounts to jaw-dropping lse majest from the retinue of what sounds like a pretender with imperial delusions. McChrystal may be an able general, a special-forces guru at his best when up against a wall. But as a soldier-politician, he's a MacArthur-sized disaster. Such words cannot be unsaid, however many apologies are forthcoming and once mutual confidence is lost, it will be almost impossible to regain.
The extreme pressure under which McChrystal and his retinue operate, day in, day out, may be the most plausible explanation for their behaviour. The general opposed Obama's decision to set a July 2011 timeline for the start of an Afghan drawdown. The Pentagon is also uncomfortable with yet another White House policy review due in December, with General David Petraeus, McChrystal's superior, last week downplaying its significance. Both decisions have complicated his task.
Actual or planned operations in the south, notably in Marja and Kandahar, have not gone as well or as swiftly as expected, as McChrystal recently conceded. Casualties, civilian and military, are rising. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has not been as supportive as the Nato allies would like, with some former ministers suggesting he no longer believes a military solution is attainable. And McChrystal knows support is fading at home. This month, when Afghanistan officially became America's longest war, an ABC News/Washington Post poll found 53 per cent of Americans believed the conflict was not worth fighting.
But in the end, McChrystal can only blame himself, not the mission, for his difficulties. An austere, self-denying, shy and almost ascetic man with a wild and violent past, McChrystal close up has something of the Spartan about him. Perhaps he and his raucous, loose-talking aides identify in some way with the doomed defenders at Thermopylae. But King Leonidas he ain't, as Obama is about to make plain.
— Guardian News & Media Ltd