"The house we hope to build is not for my generation but for yours. It is your future that matters. And I hope that when you are my age, you will be able to say as I have been able to say: We lived in freedom. We lived lives that were a statement, not an apology."


Sunday, November 15, 2009

Horse Before the Cart, Mr. President

As part of its enduring attempt to explain the absurd amount of time being taken by the president to decide on Gen. McChrystal's request, the administration has expressed uncertainty over whether the Karzai government "can reform itself enough to make success feasible."

Framing consideration in this manner stands the reality of the issue on its head. Military success in Afghanistan does not depend upon the viability of the country's government, the viability of the country's government depends upon military success.

For evidence of this one can point directly to the surge in Iraq. If the Bush administration had approached the issue in the same way the Obama administration has, America would have never sent 20,000 more American soldiers there and we would have lost a war. No serious person can deny that (though many will never admit it). The Maliki government was a cesspool of sectarian incompetence that had little will or ability to challenge Shiite militias or to encourage Sunni participation in the country's political process.

But instead of using this as a reason not to increase America's national investment in Iraq, the president understood that for any semblance of political progress to be achieved Iraq had to be militarily pacified first. Only with physical security could the civil society necessary for real democratic government develop.

President Bush was right. The surge convinced Sunnis that America was there to stay and thus encouraged them to assist us in defeating al Qaeda, creating the Anbar Awakening. Additionally, with al Qaeda eliminated there was no more justification for the Shiite militias and thus more pressure was exerted on the Maliki government to crack down on them, which they belatedly did. Ever since we have seen slow but steady political progress, the most recent example being passage of an elections bill by the Iraqi parliament.

The lesson from Iraq is clear: military success is the precondition for political success.

As much as they may be loathe to, the Obama administration needs to do as its predecessor did and grant the requested troop levels necessary for military and political success in Afghanistan, and they need to do so now while success is still possible.

Sunday, November 08, 2009

Decide, Mr. President

That President Obama's failure to answer General McChrystal's urgent request for 50,000 more troops has become inexcusable begins to go without saying. Leaving America's mission in limbo (especially the especially the men and women tasked with executing it) for such an absurd expanse of time approximates acute dereliction, a fault aggravated by the fact that he now finds himself incapable of deciding whether he is going to fulfill or nix a strategy he announced less than six months ago.

What the president seems loathe to fathom is that such a prolonged string of deliberation is not occurring within a vacuum. With each passing day of fatal indecision the members of our coalition grow more confused and the elements we are fighting become more emboldened to redouble their efforts against a foe that they can only determine is on the ropes. In this kind of purgatory life is being made much more dangerous and deadly for our people in uniform.

The president must understand that deliberation, especially in circumstances such as these, can only go on for so long. There is no more excuse for indecision. Serving as commander-in-chief is inherently an act in making momentous decisions which cannot be shirked without devastating consequences. Not even Barack Obama can change that.

Voting "Present" is the stuff of senators, not presidents.

The president must act and he must do so now.

Wednesday, November 04, 2009

McDonnell’s Triumph

There is one central item that Bob McDonnell accomplished which allowed him to win such a lopsided victory last night: He avoided the trap that many Republicans had fallen into in previous cycles by having a narrative of specificity and not abstraction. If you watched the Republican presidential primary debates in the previous cycle you could not help but notice each of the candidates trying to one-up each other in references to Ronald Reagan and his brand of conservatism. (If you had tried to play a drinking game with "Reagan" as the trigger-word, you would have succumbed to alcohol poisoning within five minutes.) Substantively, the discussion never went beyond this, leaving Republicans unable to speak to voters who were not (and never really are) interested in questions of abstract political thought but who have specific concerns about specific issues.

Bob McDonnell went beyond this. Avoiding fruitless reiteration of how he was a Ronald Reagan Republican or dwelling on his general conservative principles, the Governor-elect used those principles to adopt specific policy proposals that directly addressed Virginians' specific concerns on quality of life issues such as taxes and transportation. In so doing he won by twenty points in a state that had given President Obama a five point margin of victory only one year ago.

If Republicans want to garner the support of the independent voters who ultimately decide elections as McDonnell has done in Virginia than they must do the exact same thing. Stop talking about your fundamental conservative principles and use them; use them to craft specific policy proposals that directly address voters' very specific concerns and talk exclusively about them. Do that and you can win, especially when the party in power is only doubling voter anxiety with their hell-bent effort to enact a radical agenda.