The Problematic End of the Afghan Surge

President Obama is set to announce that the Afghan surge, where 30,000 additional US troops were stationed in Afghanistan, will come to an end in 2012. 10,000 troops will be pulled back this year, and 20,000 more will be pulled out by the end of 2012.

This doesn't end the US commitment to Afghanistan and the troop levels will be as they were when President Obama took office - 70,000.

These troop reductions are both deeper and faster than the recommendations made by Mr. Obama’s military commanders, and they reflect mounting political and economic pressures at home, as the president faces relentless budget pressures and an increasingly restive Congress and American public.

The president is scheduled to speak about the Afghanistan war from the White House at 8 p.m. Eastern time.

Mr. Obama’s decision is a victory for Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who has long argued for curtailing the American military engagement in Afghanistan. But it is a setback for his top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David H. Petraeus, who helped write the Army’s field book on counterinsurgency policy, and who is returning to Washington to head the Central Intelligence Agency.

Two administration officials said General Petraeus did not endorse the decision, though both Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who is retiring, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton reluctantly accepted it. General Petraeus had recommended limiting initial withdrawals and leaving in place as many combat forces for as long as possible, to hold on to fragile gains made in recent combat.

In announcing the withdrawals, Mr. Obama will fulfill a pledge he made in December 2009, when he coupled the deployment of 30,000 additional troops with a promise to begin winding down America’s engagement by the middle of this year. But the speed and scope of this plan is striking.

The troop withdrawals this year appears to be higher than a level that outgoing Defense Secretary Robert Gates and General David Petraeus were comfortable with, but it appears that budgeting and politics are trumping security.

Now is not the time to sit back and take the pressure off the Taliban and al Qaeda affiliated Islamists in Afghanistan or the frontier provinces along the Afghan-Pakistani border. It's the time to hammer home the fact that they've lost and that if they want the US to leave, it will be on US terms.

Reducing troop levels will allow the Taliban to claim victory when no such claim could be warranted and that will further allow them to recruit and regain a foothold in areas that are being held by ISAF and US forces.

I fear that this drawdown will allow the Taliban and al Qaeda to reassert themselves in these regions. It also means that intel gathering will be harder to come by in these regions as we will no longer have sufficient boots on the ground to carry out intel gathering missions to go along with fighting the Taliban where they appear.

It means that capturing foreign fighters and their facilitators will be harder as there are simply fewer US troops (and other ISAF troops) to monitor the region and take the fight to the Taliban.

White House Reshuffles National Security Posts

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has long made it known that he wished to retire, and he will now get his wish. President Obama has selected current CIA director Leon Panetta to succeed Gates as Defense Secretary, while tapping General David Petraeus to take over as Director of the CIA.

The appointments, set in motion by the impending retirement of Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, are part of a significant rearrangement of Mr. Obama’s national security team that will include several new assignments within the closest circle of his diplomatic, military and intelligence advisers.

Mr. Gates is expected to step down this summer.

The changes at the top of Mr. Obama’s national security team have long been expected.

Not long after Mr. Gates leaves, the term will expire for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, who, like the defense secretary, was appointed by President George W. Bush. And Deputy Secretary of State James B. Steinberg has announced that he is leaving for an academic job — removing one of the crucial players in Mr. Obama’s efforts to manage China’s rise.

But Mr. Gates’s role is the most critical. He often allied with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton — who has said that she intends to leave the administration when this term ends — including persuading Mr. Obama to start the military buildup in Afghanistan in 2009. Together they won many other battles, but they visibly split last month on the military intervention in Libya.

Several other key diplomats are leaving government and the term for the Joint Chiefs of Staff are ending, giving the President the opportunity to put his own stamp on those positions.

Both Panetta and Petraeus are known quantities when it comes to their ability to handle the job, but it means that the job of dealing with the ongoing war in Afghanistan will fall to others and will be the third such switch in little more than a year. Petraeus had taken over for Gen. Stanley McCrystal after McCrystral was forced to resign over inappropriate comments in a Rolling Stone interview.

That's perhaps the biggest downside of the moves - the inability to maintain a sense of continuity on the leadership in the Afghan theater of operations.

Gen. Petraeus Replaces Gen. McChrystal After McChrystal Sacked By White House

By now most pundits online have weighed in on the sacking of Gen. Stan McChrystal and President Obama's choice of Gen. David Petraeus as his replacement.

McChrystal was a special ops guy who was best at operating at the behest and discretion of Petraeus and his staff. The special ops is subordinate to the larger role of dealing with the entire theater of operations and all that entails. You need someone who can see the big picture and understands counterinsurgency strategy.

Independent journalist Michael Yon's postings and interactions with McChrystal and his staff showed that he wasn't up to the task of dealing with the entire theater. And Yon was calling McChrystal out as early as April. Yon thought he was in over his head. Clearly, he didn't get the politics.

Soldiers (or Generals) may excel in one role but do poorly in others. It happens. It's the bad judgment on McCrystal's part that irks me - that he enabled his underlings to openly question the chain of command like that. One simply doesn't question the civilian leadership even if you think that they're wrong. That is a recipe for dismissal and disaster. We've seen countless examples of generals bristling at civilian leadership and Presidents who sack generals who do not get the job done.

For instance, look at President Lincoln sacking general after general until he could find one who would lead and bring the South to defeat - Gen. Grant. Or, look at Gen. Patton and the way he bristled at civilian leadership following World War II. Or Gen. MacArthur's sacking following his dustup with President Truman over the prosecution of the war on the Korean peninsula.

So, even with McCrystal's problems, that doesn't absolve President Obama either. It also speaks poorly of Obama's choice in the first place. He judged his character and fitness poorly. The President also has enabled far more restrictive rules of engagement that puts US soldiers at risk and puts the onus on the troops on the ground. Those policies have to change, but to his credit, the President has picked the best person possible to replace McCrystal. That would be Gen. Petraeus.

The Obama Administration's policy in Afghanistan wasn't particularly good before, and it's currently in disarray. Hopefully Gen. Petraeus will find a way to fix things and get things back on to a positive track. Petraeus had a knack for knowing when and how to use the forces and politics at his disposal. After all, he was the one who figured out how to turn things around in Iraq via the surge of forces and gained the trust of his troops and the nation.

In the theater, having a general in charge who commands the kind of attention and respect that Petraeus does is invaluable. That will go a long way to improving matters with the Afghan govt - those warlords and local leaders who might lean towards US assistance against the Taliban, etc.

For those online who are siding with McChrystal because Obama sacked him makes little sense. McChrystal was wrong and was insubordinate and such actions cannot be tolerated in the chain of command. Obama had little choice but remove McChrystal. Doing anything else would have undermined the President's role as commander in chief. The Pentagon also couldn't and shouldn't tolerate that kind of insubordination in its ranks because it violates the chain of command and the fact that civilian leadership of the military is at the heart of the nation's national defense structure.

If McChrystal was truly at odds with the White House over the policy choices in Afghanistan, there were ways for him to make them known without being disrespectful of the President or airing the dirty laundry in a Rolling Stone interview.

If he thought the rules of engagement were too tight, he should have demanded changes. If he thought the timetables and political restrictions were too onerous, he should have demanded changes.

This, he did not do.


That doesn't mean that President Obama was right either. He was the one who made the judgment call to select McChrystal for the position despite some evidence going in that he wasn't right for the job. That reflects poorly on the President.

Correcting that error shows that the President is capable of learning from his mistakes.

Still, there is one thing (of many) that worries me.

When there are big problems with the military in Iraq or Afghanistan, all roads seemingly lead to one guy as the problem solver - Petraeus. That's not good for the long term. Is there no one else in the military upper echelons that can take on this job? One has to wonder if Gen. Petraeus is being stretched to thin in his assignments and duties.

We have to have more expertise and competence and faith in the military's upper echelons than just Gen. Petraeus. I'm glad we've got him where we do, but it is troubling that there aren't more who can shoulder that burden.

Terror Attack Attempts Against US At All Time High

The number of attempted terror attacks against the US are at an all time high.

Just weeks after the failed car bombing of New York's Times Square, the Department of Homeland Security says "the number and pace of attempted attacks against the United States over the past nine months have surpassed the number of attempts during any other previous one-year period."

That grim assessment is contained in an unclassified DHS intelligence memo prepared for various law enforcement groups, which says terror groups are expected to try attacks inside the United States with "increased frequency."

CNN obtained a copy of the document, dated May 21, which goes on to warn, "we have to operate under the premise that other operatives are in the country and could advance plotting with little or no warning."

The intelligence note says recent attempted terror attacks have used operatives and tactics which made the plots hard to detect.

The document specifically mentions the cases of Afghan national Najibullah Zazi, who pleaded guilty in February to plotting attacks on New York's subways, and Times Square bombing suspect Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani-American.

The intelligence report says both men spent significant time in the United States and were familiar with their alleged targets. Furthermore, the plots involved materials that can be commonly purchased in America without causing suspicion.

The document also says Shahzad and Zazi had short periods of training overseas "compared to lengthier training cycles for earlier operations, reducing our ability to detect their activities."

Many of these plots involve US citizens or legal immigrants who went overseas to receive terror training in places like Pakistan or Yemen and/or received funding from overseas but may or may not have been part of an official terror group like al Qaeda. Rather, they are lone wolf or affiliated terrorists who do not have direct ties to terror groups.

This makes the intel operations to detect and thwart such attacks all the more difficult. In the case of Shahzad, it was only a bomb that failed to properly detonate that prevented the loss of life. The short training cycles means that the terrorists might not have the training necessary to complete their missions, but it makes detection even more difficult.

It also points to the possibility of exposing the terror training camps because more people are flowing through in shorter time, but it also means that tracking those individuals becomes more difficult.

National security relies on gathering intel and thwarting attacks before they reach US shores. That means carrying out clandestine operations to track and eliminate terror training camps and the terror masters in the Middle East and places like Pakistan - the very sort of operation approved by Gen. David Petraeus (and published by the NY Times), which undermines the ability of such clandestine operations to be successful.

When Is A Secret Policy Not A Secret? When the NY Times Deems It So

When is a secret policy not a secret? When it gets published in the NYT. The more things change, the more they stay the same and it doesn't matter what Administration we're talking about.

The Obama Administration and Gen. Petraeus had ordered a broad expansion of clandestine military activity in an effort to disrupt militant groups or counter threats in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and other countries in the region, according to defense officials and military documents.

The secret directive, signed in September by Gen. David H. Petraeus, authorizes the sending of American Special Operations troops to both friendly and hostile nations in the Middle East, Central Asia and the Horn of Africa to gather intelligence and build ties with local forces. Officials said the order also permits reconnaissance that could pave the way for possible military strikes in Iran if tensions over its nuclear ambitions escalate.

While the Bush administration had approved some clandestine military activities far from designated war zones, the new order is intended to make such efforts more systematic and long term, officials said. Its goals are to build networks that could “penetrate, disrupt, defeat or destroy” Al Qaeda and other militant groups, as well as to “prepare the environment” for future attacks by American or local military forces, the document said. The order, however, does not appear to authorize offensive strikes in any specific countries.

In broadening its secret activities, the United States military has also sought in recent years to break its dependence on the Central Intelligence Agency and other spy agencies for information in countries without a significant American troop presence.

General Petraeus’s order is meant for small teams of American troops to fill intelligence gaps about terror organizations and other threats in the Middle East and beyond, especially emerging groups plotting attacks against the United States.

Note the word clandestine. That means covert, secret, and otherwise not to be broadcast to the general public.

So, what does the Times do? You got it. They published it, based on their sources.

Once again, the Times thinks that its job is to determine the national security policy of the US and that they are the final arbiter of what is necessarily secret and what isn't. Are they putting US troops and US national security at risk? I believe that they are, and they are increasing the risks for blowback.

Yet, there is some good news in all this. I will say that this does give me a better feeling about the Administration's counter-terror operations that they were letting the DoD take on covert ops in the Middle East, although my confidence in the Administration's actual knowledge of ME policy - particularly the operation of terror groups like Hizbullah, Hamas, and the ME peace process leave me scratching my head as if they've never heard of Bernard Lewis, or read anything other than the diplomatic releases that engage in pseudoreality on a regular basis. After all, this is the same Administration that thinks that they can reach out to moderates in Hizbullah, and that Hamas will accept a peace deal with Israel even though that terror group has nothing but the eradication of Israel on its mind.

Taliban Consolidating Grip On NW Pakistan

I think it's fair to say that Pakistan is now two countries. There's the portion held by the government in Islamabad, and then there's the rest of the country, which includes the frontier provinces and a shifting border that is creeping ever closer to Islamabad. That portion is controlled by the Taliban, and they're tightening their grip on the region.

Taliban control has serious consequences, not only to Pakistan, but the entire region.

The Taliban are once again overtly seeking to support and shelter Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. Islamabad has been incapable of controlling the frontier provinces and has all but given up on the idea, allowing the Taliban to impose sharia on the region. Most dangerous among the Taliban are the Mehsud clan, led by the capable Baitullah Mehsud, and whose relatives include those who are notorious for training child suicide bombers and whose thugs are regularly harassing NATO/US supply lines between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

It's becoming all too apparent that the Zardari government in Islamabad is losing control of Pakistan to the Taliban, and there's little anyone can do about it. The US Secretary of State has basically said that the Zardari government has abdicated its responsibilities.



I don't think that's entirely fair to the Zardari regime, which has basically cut deals with the Taliban on repeated occasions in a fashion little different than the prior Musharraf regime. The Pakistani leaders try to stick around long enough, and they repeatedly cut deals until they are threatened personally with terror attacks, in which case they engage in crackdowns. It's a cycle of violence that does not end because the appeasement repeatedly shows weakness to the Taliban, who exploit it.

The Pakistani military, which continues sending troops into the frontier provinces has been ineffective, which makes the situation all the more desperate.

Pakistan on Thursday sent paramilitary troops to a district virtually taken over by the Taliban, a day after Washington said Islamabad had abdicated to the militants by agreeing to impose Islamic law in the region.

Around 100 paramilitary troops had been deployed in Buner district, not far from Islamabad, police said. Soon after they arrived, militants attacked their convoy, killing a policeman escorting them, said Arsala Khan, a deputy police superintendent.

"A platoon of the Frontier Corps has arrived in Buner to help police maintain security in the district," Khan told Reuters.

Surging violence across Pakistan and the spread of Taliban influence in the country's northwest has revived concerns about the stability of the nuclear-armed state, which is crucial to U.S. efforts to stabilise neighbouring Afghanistan.

After failing to quell the Taliban through force, President Asif Ali Zardari last week approved enforcement of Islamic sharia law in the Swat valley and adjoining areas despite criticism from Western countries and Pakistani liberal and rights groups.

Despite spending billions on their military, they're unable to control the situation. US airstrikes are regularly denounced, despite the fact that they have been quite successful in taking out mid- and high-level terrorists.

It comes as no surprise that Gen. David Petraeus stated that Pakistan's greater threat isn't the traditional rival India, but the Taliban. For a nation steeped in nationalism and longstanding hatred of India (as seen by multiple wars and regular skirmishes across the Line of Control), recognizing that the Taliban are the true threat is a difficult thing for the government in Islamabad to do, let alone convince a polarized and Islamist-sympathizing population that they are threatened by the Taliban.

US Gets Russian and Central Asian Support For Afghan Operations

The outgoing Bush Administration has given the incoming Obama Administration a parting gift in the form of an agreement with Russia and several Central Asian countries to allow logistical support to aid the Afghan campaign bypassing the hotbed of Pakistan.

Russia and neighboring Central Asian nations have agreed to let supplies pass through their territory to American soldiers in Afghanistan, lessening Washington's dependence on dangerous routes through Pakistan, a top U.S. commander said Tuesday.

Securing alternative routes to landlocked Afghanistan has taken on added urgency this year as the United States prepares to double troop numbers there to 60,000 to battle a resurgent Taliban eight years after the U.S.-led invasion.

Meanwhile, the Pakistani army said it had killed 60 militants in a stepped up offensive close to the Afghan border, a lawless region considered a likely hiding place for Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders. Washington has long urged Islamabad to take the fight to the insurgents sheltering there.

U.S. and NATO forces get up to 75 percent of their "non-lethal" supplies such as food, fuel and building materials from shipments that traverse Pakistan, a volatile, nuclear-armed country.

The main road through the Khyber Pass in the northwest of the country has occasionally been closed in recent months due to rising attacks by bandits and Islamist militants.

U.S. Central Command chief Gen. David Petraeus said America had struck deals with Russia and several Central Asian states close to or bordering Afghanistan during a tour of the region in the past week.

"We have sought additional logistical routes into Afghanistan from the north. There have been agreements reached," Petraeus, who oversees the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, told reporters during a visit to Pakistan.

President Obama has previously stated he intended to increase the number of US troops in Afghanistan by 30,000, and that would have been extremely difficult given the problems Pakistan was having in controlling the supply lines from Pakistani port cities to the frontier provinces where the Taliban exert near full control. The Khyber Pass has been essentially closed indefinitely because of Taliban operations in the region. According to the Washington Post, 3/4 of nonlethal supplies for the US/NATO effort in Afghanistan currently passes through Pakistan from the port city of Karachi.

Pakistan has also been pressing Gen. Petraeus to halt the UAV airstrikes against Taliban and al Qaeda targets in the frontier provinces, but that didn't go over particularly well.

The problem, however, remains that the US, Afghan, NATO, and Pakistani forces have to deal with the border provinces where al Qaeda and Taliban operate freely. Pakistan has been extremely reluctant to engage in military operations in those border provinces, and their military has taken a pounding from Baitullah Mehsud's forces over the past several years.

The Taliban continue their assault on freedom and attacked five more schools yesterday. They, like their Islamist counterparts in Thailand, have made schools, teachers, and students, favorite targets, especially when they teach girls.

Media Bias 101

Drudge is reporting that the New York Times editorial staff rejected Sen. John McCain's rebuttal op-ed in the paper. Their reasoning, according to the paper's David Shipley was that it didn't mirror Sen. Barack Obama's previously published op-ed on the topic of Iraq.

This is clearly an issue of media bias. Since when does McCain have to directly rebut or address every issue raised by Obama? McCain was raising legitimate questions about Obama's judgment and knowledge of the situation in Iraq.

An op-ed piece is supposed to be about the person's opinions, and yet David Shipley has a problem with McCain expressing his. That means that McCain cannot get the piece published in the paper unless Shipley agrees to run it. Here is McCain's editorial:

In January 2007, when General David Petraeus took command in Iraq, he called the situation “hard” but not “hopeless.” Today, 18 months later, violence has fallen by up to 80% to the lowest levels in four years, and Sunni and Shiite terrorists are reeling from a string of defeats. The situation now is full of hope, but considerable hard work remains to consolidate our fragile gains.

Progress has been due primarily to an increase in the number of troops and a change in their strategy. I was an early advocate of the surge at a time when it had few supporters in Washington. Senator Barack Obama was an equally vocal opponent. "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there,” he said on January 10, 2007. “In fact, I think it will do the reverse."

Now Senator Obama has been forced to acknowledge that “our troops have performed brilliantly in lowering the level of violence.” But he still denies that any political progress has resulted.

Perhaps he is unaware that the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad has recently certified that, as one news article put it, “Iraq has met all but three of 18 original benchmarks set by Congress last year to measure security, political and economic progress.” Even more heartening has been progress that’s not measured by the benchmarks. More than 90,000 Iraqis, many of them Sunnis who once fought against the government, have signed up as Sons of Iraq to fight against the terrorists. Nor do they measure Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki’s new-found willingness to crack down on Shiite extremists in Basra and Sadr City—actions that have done much to dispel suspicions of sectarianism.

The success of the surge has not changed Senator Obama’s determination to pull out all of our combat troops. All that has changed is his rationale. In a New York Times op-ed and a speech this week, he offered his “plan for Iraq” in advance of his first “fact finding” trip to that country in more than three years. It consisted of the same old proposal to pull all of our troops out within 16 months. In 2007 he wanted to withdraw because he thought the war was lost. If we had taken his advice, it would have been. Now he wants to withdraw because he thinks Iraqis no longer need our assistance.

To make this point, he mangles the evidence. He makes it sound as if Prime Minister Maliki has endorsed the Obama timetable, when all he has said is that he would like a plan for the eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops at some unspecified point in the future.

Senator Obama is also misleading on the Iraqi military's readiness. The Iraqi Army will be equipped and trained by the middle of next year, but this does not, as Senator Obama suggests, mean that they will then be ready to secure their country without a good deal of help. The Iraqi Air Force, for one, still lags behind, and no modern army can operate without air cover. The Iraqis are also still learning how to conduct planning, logistics, command and control, communications, and other complicated functions needed to support frontline troops.

No one favors a permanent U.S. presence, as Senator Obama charges. A partial withdrawal has already occurred with the departure of five “surge” brigades, and more withdrawals can take place as the security situation improves. As we draw down in Iraq, we can beef up our presence on other battlefields, such as Afghanistan, without fear of leaving a failed state behind. I have said that I expect to welcome home most of our troops from Iraq by the end of my first term in office, in 2013.

But I have also said that any draw-downs must be based on a realistic assessment of conditions on the ground, not on an artificial timetable crafted for domestic political reasons. This is the crux of my disagreement with Senator Obama.

Senator Obama has said that he would consult our commanders on the ground and Iraqi leaders, but he did no such thing before releasing his “plan for Iraq.” Perhaps that’s because he doesn’t want to hear what they have to say. During the course of eight visits to Iraq, I have heard many times from our troops what Major General Jeffrey Hammond, commander of coalition forces in Baghdad, recently said: that leaving based on a timetable would be “very dangerous.”

The danger is that extremists supported by Al Qaeda and Iran could stage a comeback, as they have in the past when we’ve had too few troops in Iraq. Senator Obama seems to have learned nothing from recent history. I find it ironic that he is emulating the worst mistake of the Bush administration by waving the “Mission Accomplished” banner prematurely.

I am also dismayed that he never talks about winning the war—only of ending it. But if we don’t win the war, our enemies will. A triumph for the terrorists would be a disaster for us. That is something I will not allow to happen as president. Instead I will continue implementing a proven counterinsurgency strategy not only in Iraq but also in Afghanistan with the goal of creating stable, secure, self-sustaining democratic allies.

On its face, this is clearly the NYC media bias shining through.

McCain is correct to point out Obama's failure to talk about victory in Iraq, and that the situation in Iraq today would not have been possible had we listened to Obama's defeat and retreat position as the surge was taking hold. That Obama's view on a timetable for US troop withdrawals seemingly coincides with that of the Iraqi government is serendipity, not skill. Obama had nothing to do with the success in Iraq, and fought against it at every turn.

Of course, this, from a paper that has run terrorist flack propaganda without a second thought (scroll down through that link for the updates). Their defense of that publication actually works against them here. As the Times itself says, it is not in its own interest to present only one side of a debate. Yet, here we are again in the same position - getting only one side of the story because it is in the interests of the editorial staff to provide only one view.

This also fits in with polling that finds many Americans believe that the media is in the tank for Obama.

UPDATE:
McCain's camp clearly leaked this to Drudge, knowing that it will achieve more media coverage than had the New York Times run the article without any fanfare. They probably figured that it would also rile up the GOP base at the same time. The Times had no reason not to print this op-ed, but that they didn't gave McCain a golden opportunity for free press and to hammer on the Times and the media bias pervasive in the industry.

UPDATE:
Hot Air has a copy of the Shipley email to the McCain camp over what Shipley considered necessary to get the McCain op-ed published:

The Obama piece worked for me because it offered new information (it appeared before his speech); while Senator Obama discussed Senator McCain, he also went into detail about his own plans.

It would be terrific to have an article from Senator McCain that mirrors Senator Obama’s piece. To that end, the article would have to articulate, in concrete terms, how Senator McCain defines victory in Iraq. It would also have to lay out a clear plan for achieving victory — with troops levels, timetables and measures for compelling the Iraqis to cooperate. And it would need to describe the Senator’s Afghanistan strategy, spelling out how it meshes with his Iraq plan.

Never mind that Obama continues to shift on his position on Iraq, all while keeping to his withdrawal timetable that is unrelated to the facts on the ground. McCain iterates his own position on Iraq, outlines that Obama set forth his policy on Iraq before going to the Middle East and learning the facts on the ground, and that his position on the surge shows just how wrong he has been.

Obama, Timetables, and Iraq

The left is making quite the stink that Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki signaled to a German newspaper that he's in agreement with Sen. Barack Obama's declaration for withdrawal from Iraq in 16 months.

Let's look at what Obama has wanted. He wanted to cut and run. He opposed the troop surge. He said that the surge would not work. Now, after the Bush Administration and the US military did all the heavy lifting, he now wants to take credit and push for a withdrawal along timetables?

Taken together, Obama has not changed his position, but now is spinning his defeat and retreat withdrawal plan as some kind of victory for which he can take credit.

The only reason that the Iraqi government might consider any kind of a time table is because President Bush went ahead with the troop surge, listened to General Petraeus (called Betrayus by Obama's fellow travelers and supporters at Moveon.org and supported by the New York Times), and secured the country militarily so that the Iraqi government could press ahead with political gains and achieve nearly all of the 18 benchmarks set forth by the US Congress.

It is often said that victory has many fathers, but defeat gets blamed on one. Obama is now trying to take credit for the victory, even as he preached defeat and retreat on the same front and blamed President Bush for failure in Iraq.

Obama's withdrawal timetable is not based on anything other than his wishful thinking.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's hope for withdrawal is based on the gains imposed by the US and Iraqi forces working together and shouldering a load that Obama previously said was unattainable.

The two have different views of why the timetables should be in place.

Timetables also provide a guideline to al Qaeda, insurgents, and their fellow travelers to lay low until the US leaves, before resuming operations. By purposefully keeping to a strategy that doesn't reveal when and how US troops leave, it actually further improves US operational security and keeps the insurgents and terrorists off balance.

The US and Iraqis are also trying to negotiate long term security arrangements that enable the US to retain bases in Iraq, from which they can defend not only Iraq against foreign forces, but further project US security and strategic interests. Such arrangements are not unlike those that see US forces in Germany, Italy, and Japan more than 60 years following the end of World War II.

Obama continues to think that the war in Iraq is somehow separate from the larger war against al Qaeda and the Islamists, even though the US continues to capture al Qaeda on the battlefields of Iraq, and Iraq stands as a bulwark against growing Iranian influence in the region. Iraq has enabled the US to use its power and technology to full advantage to eliminate al Qaeda - things that are more difficult to accomplish in Afghanistan. The kinds of assets needed in Afghanistan are different than those used in Iraq. The goal is the same - to defeat al Qaeda and their fellow traveler Islamists, but to accomplish the goal takes a combination of lessons learned in Iraq plus new and different techniques.

I guess the best one can say now is that Obama has come around to a position where he's no longer preaching defeat on Iraq, but that doesn't make him any less of a weasel when it comes to Iraq. He's saying what ever he thinks the majority of Americans want to hear - that we're going to bring the troops home. Instead of a precipitous retreat, he's now saying that we've accomplished the mission.

Credit Where It's Due

Rep. Nancy Pelosi has decreed that the surge in Iraq worked.

Not because of the hard work of Iraqis and Americans who defeated the insurgency and al Qaeda fanatics who slaughtered countless people.

Not because of General Petraeus' surge strategy.

But because of the goodwill of Iran.

Well, the purpose of the surge was to provide a secure space, a time for the political change to occur to accomplish the reconciliation. That didn’t happen. Whatever the military success, and progress that may have been made, the surge didn’t accomplish its goal.

And some of the success of the surge is that the goodwill of the Iranians-they decided in Basra when the fighting would end, they negotiated that cessation of hostilities-the Iranians.

Iran continues to try and subvert the Iraqi government and has its thugs and terrorists trying to kill Iraqis and Americans on a daily basis to this day. There are frequent reports of Iranians killed or captured trying to attack Iraqis or Americans. Iranian weaponry and equipment is responsible for killing Americans.

Yet Pelosi has the audacity to give credit to the Iranians for all the hard work done by the Iraqis and the US-led coalition in Iraq? Unbelievable. Just when you think that Pelosi's grasp on facts can't be any worse, she goes out and surprises.

Kicked Upstairs

It remains to be seen whether General David Petraeus' selection to head up US Central Command will be a good thing in the long run. I suspect that it will be - and that his successors will continue to push home the hard fought lessons and continue to carry on the mission.

Gen. David Petraeus has been tapped to become the next commander of U.S. Central Command.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced his decision Wednesday at a press conference in Washington.

He also announced several other shifts in military leadership affecting Iraq.

Taking Petraeus' position as the senior commander in Iraq would be Army Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, who had until recently been serving as Petraeus' deputy.

"I respectfully ask the Senate to move on them expeditiously, hopefully by Memorial Day," Gates said. Both positions will require Senate confirmation.

If confirmed by the Senate, Petraeus would replace Navy Adm. William Fallon, who abruptly stepped down in March after a magazine reported that he was at odds with President Bush over Iran policy. Fallon said the report had become a distraction.

Petraeus, 55, is widely hailed by the Bush administration and members of Congress for developing and implementing a new strategy in Iraq, including the deployment of some 30,000 additional troops, that dramatically improved security.

After all, his change in strategy and tactics helped stabilize Iraq and allowed the Iraqi government to begin advancing on its benchmarks, including the 2008 General Amnesty Law, which provides reconciliation between Sunnis, Shi'ites and Kurds who had been torn apart by decades of Saddam's ruinous reign and the subsequent sectarian violence perpetrated by al Qaeda and various Sunni groups seeking to bring about anarchy.

Pandering For Votes

Pandering for votes is a politician's staple, but this shows just how foolish John Edwards truly is. He thinks that Americans will go for his latest proposal to bring home virtually all the US troops in Iraq just before the 2008 election.

The number of troops needed or necessary in Iraq to fight al Qaeda and continue to support the Iraqi government - the key missions in Iraq at present - is determined by the military commanders in Iraq and General Petraeus has hit upon a winning strategy in defeating al Qaeda and squashing the insurgency with using additional troops and concentrating efforts to reduce the area in which the insurgents and al Qaeda operate. With more Iraqi forces stepping up, US troops can and are being reduced, but to put a purely political spin on how and when to bring those troops home, it shows critical misjudgment on foreign policy, national security, and how and when to use US force to bolster and support our allies and thwart our enemies in the Middle East.

In one of his most detailed discussions to date about how he would handle Iraq as president, Mr. Edwards staked out a position that would lead to a more rapid and complete troop withdrawal than his principal rivals, Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, who have indicated they are open to keeping American trainers and counterterrorism units in Iraq.

Elizabeth Edwards, his wife and political partner, who listened in on the interview from a seat across the aisle, intervened at the end of the session to underscore that Mr. Edwards did not intend to stop all training and was prepared to train Iraqi forces outside of the country. Mr. Edwards continued the theme while acknowledging that the benefits of such training would be limited.

Mr. Edwards’s plan, like that of many of his Democratic opponents, is at odds with the strategy developed by American military commanders, who have said the situation is still too fragile to set a timetable for such extensive troop withdrawals and a curtailment of the training effort in Iraq.

Mr. Edwards’s plan calls for immediately withdrawing 40,000 to 50,000 troops. Nearly all of the remaining American troops would be removed within 9 or 10 months. The only force that would remain would be a 3,500-to-5,000-strong contingent that would protect the American Embassy and possibly humanitarian workers.

Even his wife, Elizabeth, realized that John was going too far and tried to spin the situation for him. I've said it before, and it's worth repeating, but Elizabeth has shown herself to be the more credible of the two Edwards' running.

NYT Admits It Screwed Up In Running MoveOn.org Betray Us Ad

Officials at the New York Times have admitted a liberal activist group was permitted to pay half the rate it should have for a provocative ad condemning U.S. Iraq commander Gen. David Petraeus.

The MoveOn ad, which cast Petraeus as "General Betray Us" and attacked his truthfulness, ran on the same day the commander made a highly anticipated appearance before Congress.

But since the liberal group paid the standby rate of $64,575 for the full-page ad, it should not have been guaranteed to run on Sept. 10, the day Petraeus warned Congress against a rapid withdrawal of troops from Iraq, Times personnel said.

"We made a mistake," Catherine Mathis, vice president of corporate communications for The Times, told the newspaper's public editor.

Mathis said an advertising representative left the liberal group with the understanding that the ad would run that Monday even though they had been charged the standby rate.

The group should have paid $142,083 to ensure placement that day.

Apologies should be extended to Bob Owens and others who claimed that the Times incorrectly and impermissibly extended a discount rate to Moveon.org to run their heinous ads attacking General Petraeus right as he was giving testimony before Congress. The full page ad ran in the Times, and I was appalled that the organization would attack the General even before his report was heard. It was a preemptive attack on his reputation and integrity.

The General was quite forthright and blunt in his assessments of the situation in Iraq, and the success of the surge in Iraq is such that even the Times itself cannot ignore that the security situation has improved to the point where the political failures within the Iraqi government take precedence over the security situation.

Is Elizabeth Edwards Running For President?

You know, it's interesting that Elizabeth Edwards gets far more press than her husband. She just came out opposing the MoveOn.org ad smearing General David Petraeus. It's the right call, but is it surprising that John Edwards didn't make that statement himself? This is a pattern over the past several months.

You'd have to wonder which one of them is actually running for President the way things are going. I suspect it's intentional since Johnny boy doesn't exactly inspire a whole lot of confidence in anything more than his hair care regime. Either that, or John Edwards actually supports the MoveOn.org position vis-a-vis the claims that Gen. Petraeus was cooking the books to support the Administration's policy on Iraq.

The thing is that so many Democrats are beholden to MoveOn.org and the money and grassroots organizing that flows from that relationship. If they burn bridges with MoveOn, they may lose a significant vocal minority that holds sway among Democrats who are key during primary season - the ones who actually vote.

Sen. Schumer's Shamelessness

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has no shame in making the baseless assertion that the improvement in the situation in Anbar province had nothing to do with the US military. For the record, he stated the following:

And let me be clear, the violence in Anbar has gone down despite the surge, not because of the surge. The inability of American soldiers to protect these tribes from al Qaeda said to these tribes we have to fight al Qaeda ourselves. It wasn't that the surge brought peace here. It was that the warlords took peace here, created a temporary peace here. And that is because there was no one else there protecting.

Not only does that go against the facts on the ground, but the facts as known by the Iraqis living there. Schumer has gone on about Iraq with blinders on, and the improvements there are not only real and tangible, but a direct result of changed tactics by the US military under Gen. Petraeus. Notes the Times of London:

Captain Patriquin may have offered more than mere words. His main interlocutor, Sheikh Abdul Sittar Bezea al-Rishawi, told The Times that he gave them guns and ammunition too. The sheikhs did rise up. They formed a movement called the Anbar Awakening, led by Sheikh Sittar. They persuaded thousands of their tribesmen to join the Iraqi police, which was practically defunct thanks to al-Qaeda death threats, and to work with the reviled US troops. The US military built a string of combat outposts (COPs) throughout a city that had previously been a no-go area, and through a combination of Iraqi local knowledge and American firepower they gradually regained control of Ramadi, district by district, until the last al-Qaeda fighters were expelled in three pitched battles in March. What happened in Ramadi was later replicated throughout much of Anbar province.

Ramadi’s transformation is breathtaking. Shortly before I arrived last November masked al-Qaeda fighters had brazenly marched through the city centre, pronouncing it the capital of a new Islamic caliphate. The US military was still having to fight its way into the city through a gauntlet of snipers, rocket-propelled grenades, suicide car bombs and improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Fifty US soldiers had been killed in the previous five months alone. I spent 24 hours huddled inside Eagles Nest, a tiny COP overlooking the derelict football stadium, listening to gunfire, explosions and the thump of mortars. The city was a ruin, with no water, electricity or functioning government. Those of its 400,000 terrified inhabitants who had not fled cowered indoors as fighting raged around them.

Today Ramadi is scarcely recognisable. Scores of shattered buildings testify to the fury of past battles, but those who fled the violence are now returning. Pedestrians, cars and motorbike rickshaws throng the streets. More than 700 shops and businesses have reopened. Restaurants stay open late into the evening. People sit outside smoking hookahs, listening to music, wearing shorts – practices that al-Qaeda banned. Women walk around with uncovered faces. Children wave at US Humvees. Eagles’ Nest, a heavily fortified warren of commandeered houses, is abandoned and the stadium hosts football matches.

The Iraqis named a police station after Army Captain Travis Patriquin.

Speaking of Gen. Petraeus, the media is now full of reports undermining claims by the military that violence is down in Iraq, Democrats attempting to downplay Petraeus' report next week, and generally attempting to poke holes in the fact that the Surge has improved the situation in Iraq.

Does the prospect of a positive report from Petraeus scare so many people in DC that they've got to proactively attack the policy and report even before it is presented to Congress?

UPDATE:
It should be noted that Captain Patriquin was killed in action in Ramadi. The Iraqis chose to honor his sacrifice by naming the police station after him.

Meanwhile, Cassandra lets it rip and doesn't hold back on Schumer's perfidy. Hot Air has the video.

Others blogging: Don Surber, Right Voices, and Jammie.

Quick Hits

President Bush has made a surprise visit to Iraq. He had been scheduled to go to Australia, but left hours early to visit Iraq instead. The President flew into an air base in Anbar province, instead of flying into Baghdad.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates arrived ahead of Bush, and convened a meeting with the country's top political leaders to highlight Bush administration hopes for prodding Iraq into a ''bottom-up'' approach to national reconciliation.

Gates conferred with senior U.S. officials, including Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, before opening a session with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, President Jalal Talabani, and other top Iraqi officials from Baghdad.

Bush and his national security team flew directly to this air base in a remote part of Anbar province, bypassing Baghdad in a symbolic expression of impatience with political paralysis in the nation's capital. The gesture underscored the U.S. belief that the spark for progress may come at the local level.

Palestinian terrorists fired kassam rockets into Sderot. This time, they hit the courtyard of a day care center. Several people suffered from shock in the attack, but rockets rained down elsewhere around the City.

It followed a salvo of seven Kassam rockets that landed in and around the beleaguered town Monday morning. After one of the rockets thudded into the courtyard of a day care center, soldiers scrambled to evacuate everyone inside. Twelve people, including some of the babies, suffered shock and a building was damaged.

Despite the fact that none of the 15 babies at the center were wounded, frantic parents across the city - already furious over the government's failure to protect them and their children from the near-daily rocket fire - pulled their children out of schools on the second day of the academic year.

The Janjaweed is busy killing each other after killing or running off everyone else in Darfur.

[T]hugo Chavez says that he can remain in power until 2027. Venezuelans have only to look at Zimbabwe to see what's in their future: a dictator in Mugabe who has thoroughly and utterly destroyed a once vibrant economy. State takeovers of foreign companies will only make the situation worse.

Meanwhile, the situation in Thailand remains restive. The Islamists are still busy attacking soldiers and civilians alike.

Al Qaeda Bombings In Iraq Kill 500+

Yesterday's horrific bombings in Northern Iraq have killed upwards of 500 people. Expect people to claim that the attack is a sign that the surge isn't working, which is precisely why al Qaeda would attempt spectacular attacks - precisely for media consumption, not necessarily because al Qaeda is winning. It's all about perceptions, and al Qaeda knows that these kinds of attacks are good at swaying the media elites, especially in the US.

The death toll in the suicide bombings Tuesday in northern Iraq has risen to at least 500, local officials in Nineveh province said Wednesday.

Iraqi Army and Mosul police sources earlier put the number at 260, but said it was likely to rise. 320 were reported wounded.

The Tuesday truck bombs that targeted the villages of Qahtaniya, al-Jazeera and Tal Uzair, in northern Iraq near the border with Syria, were a "trademark al Qaeda event" designed to sway U.S. public opinion against the war, a U.S. general said Wednesday.

The attacks, targeting Kurdish villages of the Yazidi religious minority, were attempts to "break the will" of the American people and show that the U.S. troop escalation -- the "surge" -- is failing, Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon said.

The bombings highlight the kind of sectarian tensions the troop surge was designed to stop.

Al Qaeda in Iraq is predominantly Sunni, and Mixon said members of the Yazidi religious minority have received threatening letters, called "night letters," telling them "to leave because they are infidels."

The bombings were conducted against the Yezidi, a religious offshoot of Islam that is a mix of different theologies and beliefs. Islamists don't consider them to be true Muslims, so they're fair game.

As for the current military thinking, General Petraeus thinks that some units may be able to be redeployed to other parts of the country as the situation stabilizes in some regions. This is a situation that has to be constantly monitored, since al Qaeda may just as easily slip by and attempt to reassert itself in areas left by US forces. Whack-a-mole comes to mind.

Dropping Hammers on Beauchamp

You could see the writing on the wall yesterday. The PAO for FOB Falcon and Camp Buehring both said that none of the claims in ScottScam could be substantiated. Lies. Urban legends and myths. That's how Beauchamp's stories were described. No one could substantiate any of the claims, particularly the most egregious ones - the dining hall incident where soldiers jeered a woman grievously injured by an IED who was at the dining facility. Note that TNR said that in the course of their investigation they had to correct where that incident occurred. It didn't happen in Iraq as originally claimed (and supposedly vetted before publication), but in Kuwait and months earlier.

Well, the PAO for General Petraeus dropped the hammer. Hard.

Bob Owens has been in touch with Public Affairs Officers in Kuwait and Iraq and received email from Col. Steven Boylan, Public Affairs Officer for U.S. Army Commanding General in Iraq David Petraeus, who said that not only was the investigation complete, but all allegations made by Beauchamp were found to be without merit. So, what will happen to Beauchamp next? Col. Boylan writes:

As there is no evidence of criminal conduct, he is subject to administrative punishment as determined by his chain of command. Under the various rules and regulations, administrative actions are not releasable to the public by the military on what does or does not happen.

That will presumably end this sorry chapter as far as the US Army is concerned, but the problems are just beginning for TNR.

TNR has a lot more to worry about since they claim to have substantiated matters with a bunch of anonymous sources. If they want to stand by the story, they're going to have to do more than provide anonymous sources. They're going to have to name names - who supposedly corroborated these stories for them and how did they come by such knowledge. How is it that TNR was able to obtain this information and the US Army, who interviewed members of Beauchamp's unit, was not.

They're now on vacation, which doesn't make this any easier for them. Perhaps hoping that things will blow over in the interim will not make this go away either. ScottScam is a stain on the publication, one on par with the Stephen Glass incident. They should have known better and it will be interesting to see how they respond to the latest email from the US Army on the matter.

Franklin Foer, editor of TNR, has stood by this story, knowing full well that the facts were running against him. He's claimed that the magazine had vetted the story before publication and its reexamination of the story found corroboration other than the relocation of the dining hall incident from Iraq's FOB Falcon to Kuwait's Camp Buehring, a not insignificant matter, even though it was passed off as such.

Contortions

The Democrats have a big problem. Success in Iraq is a problem for them politically.

Clyburn noted that Petraeus carries significant weight among the 47 members of the Blue Dog caucus in the House, a group of moderate to conservative Democrats. Without their support, he said, Democratic leaders would find it virtually impossible to pass legislation setting a timetable for withdrawal.

“I think there would be enough support in that group to want to stay the course and if the Republicans were to stay united as they have been, then it would be a problem for us,” Clyburn said.

Clyburn is the House Whip, so it's his job to count heads for votes. He has to know that the cut and run leftists in his party do not have the numbers, and the facts on the ground are such that the rest of the party is in a bind. If they want to keep the House in 2008, they've got to show that they are committed to winning in Iraq. Cutting and running - aka defeat and retreat - are not an option, especially when the media reports and military briefings are encouraging that the surge is working and Iraq is stabilizing. The situation is by no means perfect there, but it is heading in the right direction.

This situation is a huge problem for the Democrats in Congress. It would be great for the US if the good news continues to flow from Iraq.

Therefore, with the continuing good news from Iraq, if you're a Democrat you have to engage in Escher/Mobius contortions to stay ahead of the changing tide.

The Democrats have predicated their entire Congressional efforts on cut and run. They've followed the Murtha wing of the party into a quagmire of recriminations and empty threats, which has only enraged the far left of the party because it shows their impotence. That, in turn, gets them frothing at the mouth even more and gets the likes of Sheehan to come out and demand impeachment or else she'd run against Speaker Pelosi.

Trying to defund a war that we're looking like we're able to win is a losing proposition for the Democrats, which is why they're changing strategies - instead of going after Bush on Iraq, they're trying for the low hanging fruit of other Administration officials - AG Gonzales for example - claiming that they've lied or withheld information, etc., because they simply have no where else to turn.

They can't lead on the issue of Iraq since they've been leading towards defeat and retreat and the facts do not warrant such a position. Even some Democrats in the House, including Rep. Ellison, are noting the progress.

What this also does is put people like Obama and the other anti-war candidates in a bind going into 2008. Hillary can stand by her support of the war and use it as a club against the others who have either flipped on the issue, or were against the war - showing that she knew that holding the course was the right decision (yes, I know she's flipped as well, but she can pull this off better than the other Democrats).

Still, all this does is show that the Democrats cannot lead on the issue of national security since they continue to put politics ahead of national security.

All these folks on the Left who keep frothing and demanding impeachment and investigations and those on the Right who attack the Administration's policies seemingly ignore the fact that Bush isn't running in 2008. This goes double for the Presidential candidates for 2008 - from both parties.

Most people know this - and as the 2008 elections move closer, that will hit home. Trying to run against Bush may sound great now, but he's not in the field. It is, however, a great way to separate yourself from other candidates in the field and make you sound tougher on an issue than you really are. It's real easy to run against a guy who is prohibited against running for President.

It's far more difficult in coming up with a coherent foreign policy that maintains national security and takes into account the fact that al Qaeda continues to pose a threat and that AQ considers Iraq to be a main battlefield for the fight.

Don Surber notes that Speaker Pelosi, who prior to November 2006 was calling for FISA reform, is now ignoring calls to amend the intel law to deal with the ongoing threats posed by international terrorist organizations.

Just Fabulism

Last week, The Telegraph ran a story by claiming that Gen. David Petraeus got into a shouting match with Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki and Maliki said that he would demand that Gen. Petraeus be replaced. The author of the piece was Damien McElroy.

Did it actually happen?

Gen. Petraeus says it didn't happen. MNF-I says it didn't happen. Even the Telegraph is starting to back off the hard hitting tone of the original report, and it appears that the facts do not support the story as written.

So, how did The Telegraph run the story? It appears that they didn't bother to ask MNF-I or Gen. Petraeus for comments before running the story.

Bryan at Hot Air notes the following:

If McElroy made this conflict up or intentionally inflated it from standard and understandable differences of opinion to what he’s reporting — Maliki telling President Bush that he can’t work with Petraeus and wants him out — that’s serious misconduct. The evidence so far suggests that Petraeus’ surge strategy is working. McElroy’s reportage seems designed to destroy the Petraeus-Maliki relationship, which is arguably the most important relationship in Iraq right now. When the press makes mistakes, the mistake in question always, always paints the war as lost, the US as incompetent, the violence as even more extreme than the reality, etc. After a few years of this, these mistakes look less like mistakes and more like “mistakes.”

It goes without saying that McElroy's errors could have had the potential to turn public opinion around the war against Gen. Petraeus and further reduce the US capability to stabilize the situation in Iraq. What is McElroy's motivation in all this?