The McChrystal Controversy: Someone Started It

By Steve Hynd

Spencer Ackerman writes that the current feuding between the pro and anti-escalation bipartisan consensuses over whether General Stan McChrystal is talking out of turn is mostly hype by the hardline conservative portion of the escalation lobby. He makes a convincing case that these conservatives are just trying to use McChrystal, quoting him out of context, to pressure Obama politically and that McChrystal is in fact now going out of his way to support his Commander in Chief's new strategic review.

Michael Cohen agrees, but has some problems with McChrystal's method still.

His strategic review, which calls on the President to send more forces to Afghanistan or risk failure, just got leaked - right in the middle of a White House review of Afghanistan policy. It's sort of safe to say that every time Stanley McChrystal opens his mouth these days it creates news; and every time he says something that is contrary to the ongoing debate in Washington about US policy in Afghanistan - even if he isn't trying to --  it risks opening up potential cleavages between the military and the civilian leadership.

In other words, the general has given his review to the President; everyone knows where he stands. Perhaps he should stop talking so much. (And to be clear, I don't necessarily mean that as a criticism; it's more that his conduct risks politicizing a national security debate).

...Just to be clear, I don't have a problem with General McChrystal expressing his views even when I think he is wrong. And I wouldn't feel comfortable accusing him of explicitly leaking his strategic review to force the president's hands. But somebody leaked it; and some folks have been leaking some variation of McChrystal's argument for the past several months - and that puts undue pressure on the president to follow a particular course in Afghanistan. And it's coming from an institution that is nominally supposed to be above such public intervention in policy discussions.

My concern is when those views become part of the national discussion about Afghanistan policy and end up politicizing that debate, which as near I can tell is precisely what is happening. [Emphasis mine - Steve]

That sounds exactly right now me. But we also have to recall that the McChrystal leak and subsequent questions about whether he was speaking out of turn didn't exactly occur in a vacuum. It's not too long ago that another of the Petraeus cabal, General Odierno, was making news for being too outspoken on his view that US troops might ignore the SOFA agreement in Iraq and stay past their agreed withdrawal date. Back then, we saw the same set of conservative voices take up the baton and parlay his words into political attacks on Obama. In both cases, the general in question quickly got more "on message" but the damage had already been done. 

Once is an accident, twice might be coincidence...but it probably isn't.