There can be little doubt that President Obama’s decision to claw back the surge forces by the end of next summer had a political dimension — the only question is to what extent did those political exigencies override military considerations? Robert Kagan thinks the answer is quite a bit:
The entire military leadership believes the president’s decision is a mistake, and especially the decision to withdraw the remainder of the surge forces by September 2012. They will soldier on and do their best, but as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, put it, in characteristic understatement, they believe the decision will increase the risk to the troops and increase the chancethat the mission will not succeed. It bears repeating that the deadline imposed by the president has nothing to do with military or strategic calculation. It has everything to do with an electoral calculation. President Obama wants those troops out two months before Americans go to the voting booth.
This may prove a disastrous political calculation, too, however. If the war is going badly in the summer and fall of 2012, it will be because of the decision the president made this week. Everyone will know he did it against the advice of his commanders. Everyone will know he did it for political reasons. So if the war is going badly a year from now, whom do you think the American people will blame? There will still be 70,000 American troops in Afghanistan, but as part of a losing effort. Will Americans reward Obama at the polls under those circumstances?
I quite agree the decision could backfire on the president should the war take a turn for the worse. Fatigued or not, the American public will trace the causal chain from POTUS’s decision to more dead Americans and a Taliban resurgence. And he’ll pay for it.