E-mail:

Dear Rich,
It is good to see that the President is finally putting some time in on the War. The question I have is, what took him so long? The President should have had these meetings in March, and not October. There also seems to be some confusion. Early last summer the President abruptly fired General McKiernan and appointed a known counter-insurgency specialist in General McChrystal. Knowing what we know about how General Petraeus conducted the surge in Iraq, it should come as little surprise that General McChrystal wishes to duplicate the same in Afghanistan. After all, he was the right hand man for General Petraeus. Why appoint McChrystal when you know all along he would ask for considerable reinforcements? As late as his VFW Address, the President never uttered a word that he had serious doubts about a counter-insurgency strategy. Less than a month later he was given General McChrystal’s request for additional combat brigades and what does he do? Nothing. It took the request being leaked to the Post in order get a reaction from the President.
Now all of a sudden, dozens of military and civilian advisers are involved in micro-managing a combat operation, which in reality should be the sole prerogative of the theatre commander. Yes, the President is the CIC. And if he chooses, he can run the combat operations from the Oval Office. And I do not blame the President for having the “doubts”. But the time for consultation was 8-10 months ago. From the day that he was elected last November, President Obama should have ordered that case studies be prepared so that when he was inaugurated he would be ready to formulate a strategy with all of the top bureaucrats in the DOD and State Department. A field commander is chosen only after the President is committed to a strategy. In essence, what the President has done is akin to a NFL owner hiring a coach like the late Bill Walsh, and drafting a quarterback like Peyton Manning. Then 2 weeks before the season begins, the owner informs the coach that he really wants them to feature a running game using the T-formation . In an ideal situation, the President sets the geo-political strategy, hires a commander that can best execute that strategy, and then he does his best to ensure that the commander has all the resources to win.
What we have now is pure confusion. General McChystal is being set up not only to fail, but also to bear the brunt of the blame if things do in fact go south. Whether it is politics, confusion, or pure incompetence, the President is blowing it. If he doesn’t get his act together very soon, we could have a disaster on our hands.