By
Gordon Lubold
The inside story: how Obama
let diplomacy fail in Afghanistan. This morning,
FP publishes an excerpt of a new book by Vali Nasr, a former aide
to Richard Holbrooke, who argues that President Barack Obama's Afghanistan
policy was more the result of bureaucratic turf battles than a genuine attempt
to get "the war of necessity" right. Working inside Obama's foreign policy apparatus
was a "deeply disillusioning experience," he writes. As
excerpted
on FP: "The truth is that his
administration made it extremely difficult for its own foreign-policy experts
to be heard. Both Clinton and Holbrooke, two incredibly dedicated and talented
people, had to fight to have their voices count on major foreign-policy
initiatives. Holbrooke never succeeded. Clinton did -- but it was
often a battle. It usually happened only when it finally became clear to a
White House that jealously guarded all foreign policymaking -- and then relied
heavily on the military and intelligence agencies to guide its decisions --
that these agencies' solutions were no substitute for the type of patient,
credible diplomacy that garners the respect and support of allies. Time and
again, when things seemed to be falling apart, the administration finally
turned to Clinton because it knew she was the only person who could save the
situation."
Nasr: "One could argue that in most administrations, an
inevitable imbalance exists between the military-intelligence complex, with its
offerings of swift, dynamic, camera-ready action, and the foreign-policy
establishment, with its seemingly ponderous, deliberative style. But this
administration advertised itself as something different. On the campaign trail,
Obama repeatedly stressed that he wanted to get things right in the broader
Middle East, reversing the damage that had resulted from the previous
administration's reliance on faulty intelligence and its willingness to apply
military solutions to problems it barely understood.
"Not only did that not happen, but
the president had a truly disturbing habit of funneling major foreign-policy
decisions through a small cabal of relatively inexperienced White House
advisors whose turf was strictly politics. Their primary concern was how any
action in Afghanistan or the Middle East would play on the nightly news, or
which talking point it would give the Republicans. The Obama administration's
reputation for competence on foreign policy has less to do with its
accomplishments in Afghanistan or the Middle East than with how U.S. actions in
that region have been reshaped to accommodate partisan political concerns."
And this: "Reflecting on the White House staff, Adm. Mike
Mullen, who served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs until September 2011,
observed ‘they want to control everything.'"
Michael Gordon, writing in
today's NYT on the new book: "His chapters on Afghanistan and Pakistan
are likely to receive special attention, as they cover the two years when Mr.
Nasr had a ringside view of the administration's policymaking as a senior
adviser for Mr. Holbrooke."
And: "The subtext for the squabbling was a deeper battle for influence over
policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan. During the early months of Mr. Obama's
first term, Mr. Holbrooke set up S.R.A.P., the office of the Special
Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, which is still lodged in an
inauspicious suite of offices near the State Department cafeteria. Mr. Nasr
writes that the White House staff, which firmly controlled policy on Iran and
the Arab-Israeli issue, was never comfortable with the arrangement, all the
more so since senior members of Mr. Obama's national security staff had been
active members of his campaign team, where they had done battle against Mrs.
Clinton during the primaries."
"The Dispensable Nation: American Foreign Policy in
Retreat," by Vali Nasr, on
Amazon.
Welcome
to Monday's edition of Situation Report, where it's
national security for the ADD crowd. Follow me @glubold. Or hit me
anytime at gordon.lubold@foreignpolicy.com. Sign up for Situation
Report
here or just shoot me an e-mail and I'll put you on
the list. And as always, if you have a report, piece of news, or tidbit you
want teased, send it to us
early for maximum tease. If we can get it in, we will. And help us fill
our candy dish: news of the military weird, strange trends, personnel
comings-and-goings
and whatnot.
This is the first full business day of sequester. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel will be working
that and other issues after saying Friday that the Pentagon was ready for
sequester, we're told, though perhaps that's obvious. "This is the security of the United States of America that
we're talking about," Hagel said on Friday. "We will do what is necessary."
And: "We will manage these issues. These are adjustments. We have anticipated
these kinds of realities, and we will do what we need to do."
Get
your sequester T-Shirt. At least get an idea of the one you'd have to order yourself if you
click
here. Like:
"Happy #%@*! Furlough Day," and "Furlough: The New F Word," and [picture of
boxer briefs:] "I'm Taking My Furlough In the Shorts," and "Furlough This."
What will Hagel's bumper
sticker be? Bob
Gates famously arrived in the Pentagon on the momentum of his single mantra: "To
win the wars we're in." It was the overarching idea under which all other
things seemed to fall -- a focus on the men and women in combat in Iraq and
Afghanistan and what they needed to win -- after years of what Gates saw as
bureaucratic indifference. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who was never
expected to stay in the building for very long, never had a tagline that
resonated in the same way. Panetta talked genuinely about caring for the troops.
He also ended "don't ask, don't tell" and the ban on women in combat, but no
one idea bubbled to the top. Chuck Hagel, however, begins a new era. What will
it be called? What will his big idea be? In his first week on the job , it is
as yet unclear. But as as sequestration takes effect, one friend to Situation
Report suggests "The Year of Living Dangerously." Send others if you got ‘em.
Jeh Johnson made a pitch for
repealing the Defense of Marriage Act to an African-American audience of
Harvard law school types. The
E-Ring's
Kevin Baron: "Johnson, who left his post as the
Defense Department's general counsel at the end of 2012 for private practice,
delivered an impassioned plea before Harvard Law School's black student group,
arguing that DOMA makes ‘second-class spouses' out of the husbands and wives of
legally married gay service members."
Johnson, according to prepared remarks: "DOMA's
application to those in the United States military is particularly cruel and
unfair."
And: "If you are straight, legally married, in the military,
you and your family qualify for a basic allowance for housing off base at what
we call the ‘with-dependent' higher rate; if you are gay, legally married, in
the military, you and your family do not. This unequal treatment of two members
of the U.S. military -- both legally married, both serving their countries --
in the crucial matter of the level of money they receive to support their
families, is based solely on sexual orientation."
Did Lt. Gen. Craig Franklin just
help advocates trying to stop sexual assault? Stripes' Nancy Montgomery
writes
that Franklin, the Third Air Force commander, reinstated Lt. Col. James
Wilkerson after a recent assault conviction, in what advocates see as a
"stunning example of structural problems in an outdated military justice system
rife with bias that discounts victims while emboldening offenders." Wilkerson
was accused last March by a 49-year-old physician's assistant of groping her
breasts and vagina as she slept in a guest bedroom at Wilkerson's home after an
‘impromptu party," Montgomery wrote. An all-male jury of four colonels and one
lieutenant colonel convicted Wilkerson of aggravated sexual assault after a
week-long trial at Aviano Air Base, Italy. The jury sentenced him to dismissal,
total pay forfeiture and a year in jail. Montgomery wrote that Franklin's
decision to overturn that decision "conveyed that the jury, guided in the law
by the presiding judge, had made a serious mistake, military lawyers said."
Susan Burke, a lawyer who
represents numerous military women: "It's really shocking...it's inexcusable. It's
like the poster child for why we need reform. It proves to Congress why they
have to act."
Greg Jacob, policy director
of the Service Women's Action Network and a former Marine infantry officer: "It's atrocious. It's
infuriating.... It's a perfect example of the due process system being overridden
just at the whim of a commander. It's a real travesty of justice."
- WSJ:
U.S. Boosts War Role in Africa (registration/paywall).
-
- France
24: The French pilots in Mali doing battle from the sky.
-
- AFP:
Gunmen kill regional police chief in Nigeria
-
- AP:
France: Key al-Qaida chief in Mali likely killed.
- AP:
Karzai lashes out at Pakistan.
-
- Lancashire
Evening Post: I went to Afghanistan as a boy, came back a man.
-
- Time:
Afghanistan, on the leading edge of a technology revolution.
