Obama Mousetrapped By Pentagon

By Steve Hynd

President Obama spent much of the day on TV talk shows telling America that he was skeptical about troop increases in Afghanistan and that the strategy there wasn't set in stone.

Then, just as everyone was talking about that, the Pentagon gave the Washington Post an exclusive copy of the unclassified version of General McChrystal's report [PDF]. In it, he says that he needs more troops or the mission �will likely result in failure�, and that the new mission is quite definitely "Focus On The Population". I'll have more on that tomorrow but for the moment the domestic internal politics of the exclusive leaps out.

Way to make the President look clueless on what his commanders seem certain about!

Our good friend Siun at FDL called it McChrystal's Power Play earlier today, noting that his team have been issuing not-so-veiled threats about the General telling Obama to either do it his way or face McChrystal's resignation.

In a companion piece, the WaPo team of Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Karen DeYoung points at the tension between the military and their civilian superior at the White House:

Some officials charge that the military has been trying to push Obama into a corner with public statements such as those by Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that the situation in Afghanistan is "serious and deteriorating" and "probably needs more forces." One official questioned whether McChrystal had already gone beyond his writ with public statements describing the protection of the Afghan population as more important than killing Taliban fighters.

When Obama announced his strategy in March, there were few specifics fleshing out his broad goals, and the military was left to interpret how to implement them. As they struggle over how to adjust to changing reality on the ground, some in the administration have begun to fault McChrystal for taking the policy beyond where Obama intended, with no easy exit.

But Obama's deliberative pace -- he has held only one meeting of his top national security advisers to discuss McChrystal's report so far -- is a source of growing consternation within the military. "Either accept the assessment or correct it, or let's have a discussion," one Pentagon official said. "Will you read it and tell us what you think?" Within the military, this official said, "there is a frustration. A significant frustration. A serious frustration."

Here's the thing - I don't for a second believe McChrystal is acting alone, any more than General Odierno in Iraq was acting alone when he kicked up his heels earlier this year about US troops staying beyond the time alloted by the SOFA agreement. Both are too closely orbiting the career fortunes of their mutual; commander. We may well be looking at the first moves in the Petraeus 2012 campaign as well as at the usual military/civilian rivalry..

Meanwhile, McChrystal's report doesn't actually say how many troops he thinks he needs to possibly, maybe, if the wind is right, save Afghanistan. That's to follow in a subsequent report, doubtless also to be released at an inopportune moment.