The Obama administration made a serious mistake in firing McChrystal. A lot of people were telling Obama he had no choice, because McChrystal put him in a box, but it is still a serious mistake. The Obama administration thinks that by immediately naming Petraeus to replace McChrystal that this problem is solved and the story will just fade away. They are wrong. The problem is that while Obama can fire McChrystal, the appointment of General Petraeus to take his place requires Senate confirmation. That means hearings, and these hearings could be spectacular political theatre. While General Petraeus has a lot of support from both Republicans and Democrats, Obama’s conduct of the war does not.
The liberal left is going to be asking the General hard questions about whether or not the war is winnable and why shouldn’t we just give up. Liberal Democrats have a long history of being willing to walk away from a war without any regard to the consequences. Numerous experts predicted the humanitarian nightmare that developed in Vietnam after we left. Many people estimate more than 3,000,000 people were killed. The liberals knew that, but, since they weren’t American troops with the casualty counts broadcast on CBS, they didn’t care. Just recently Democrats were demanding Bush to withdraw from Iraq, regardless of circumstances. They wasted the last two years of his President trying to cut off funding for the Iraq war. Even their own experts predicted that Iraq would have descended into chaos with massive loss of civilian life and an immediate resurgence of al Qaeda if we withdrew, but they didn’t care. In fact both Barack Obama and Harry Reid declared the surge, led by … General Petraeus … to have failed before it even began.
Republicans are going to be taking the exact opposite approach. McCain, for example, is going to remind the President that he is the one who said that winning in Afghanistan is vital to our national security. He will remind us that Obama described Afghanistan as the necessary war. McCain is going to demand that we do whatever it takes to win. There is zero chance Obama will do that.
Obama, who has no leadership skills at all, will try to split the baby. He will try to appease the left by saying he intends to stick to the 2011 withdrawal deadline and he will try to appeal to the right by saying he put in the General who won the war in Iraq. (The same war he declared lost, before it was won). The only thing certain is that neither group is going to be satisfied with his decision. He will not withdraw soon enough to appease the liberal left, and he will not provide enough additional manpower and firepower to give Petraeus what he needs to succeed.
Afghanistan will continue to deteriorate at an even faster pace. Even though the main stream media will try and pretend that Obama showed leadership by firing McChrystal our enemies know the truth. The war in Afghanistan is being micro-managed by incompetent fools that are despised even by our own commanders. They will view, correctly, the firing of McChrystal and the embarrassment to Obama as a major victory. They will be energized by this clear evidence that they are winning. It would take a strong President to overcome this. Unfortunately we have Obama. I hope I am wrong, but it would appear that General Petraeus has been chosen to lead the modern version of “The Charge of The Light Brigade.”
Did anyone notice that Obama went out of his way to say he didn’t fire McChrystal because his feelings were hurt. Ah…actually…that’s exactly why he fired McChrystal. We were already in serious trouble in Afghanistan. Thanks to Obama’s brilliant leadership I think we may just snatch defeat from the jaws of failure.
TDM