Dems Largely Silent On "Clap Harder" Af/Pak Strategy

By Steve Hynd

If Bush had announced a 15-year, $1.3 trillion "new" strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan which was identical in many respects to the old one and which had no benchmarks or metrics in it to boot, Democratic Party lawmakers would have howled, and rightly so. But Obama has done exactly that and there's not a lot of noise at all - yet.

Robert Dreyfuss in The Nation reports:

Yesterday, speaking at the inaugural conference of the the Foreign Policy Initiative, the new advocacy group launched by the neoconservatives -- see "Introducing PNAC 2.0" by ThinkProgress -- Rep. Jane Harman raised the benchmark (or "metrics") issue, and she pointedly recounted a conversation that she had with Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, about the topic. Her conversation, she said, went like this:

"I said, 'So where are the metrics?'

"He said, 'They exist.'

"I said, 'So when are we going to hear about them?'

"He said, 'Well, we're not sure we're going to make them public.'"

Earlier on Tuesday morning, Leslie Gelb of the Council on Foreign Relations, ridiculed the administration for not having set the benchmarks it promised, at a CFR roundtable that I attended. "President Obama said there would be no blank checks, and he promised there would be benchmarks," Gelb told me, in an interview. "But when he released his plan, you couldn't find a single benchmark in it!" Added Gelb, to the gathering of reporters:

"How the hell do you formulate a policy based on benchmarks if there are no benchmarks? And how the hell do you have a policy if there's no way to know if benchmarks are being met?"

Gelb also slammed John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, for refusing to hold Obama's feet to the fire over the benchmarks. On Iraq, Gelb pointed out, Kerry and Levin were vociferous in demanding that President Bush provide specific metrics for the surge.

A recent article by Roll Call's Jennifer Bendery (subs. only) says that leading liberals have been silent on Obama's strategy mainly because they haven't figured out a unified stance yet. Even so, it contained some quoted criticism from Democratic House Reps.

Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) ... a co-chairman of the Progressive Caucus, said he isn’t patently opposed to more troops in Afghanistan. Grijalva said he could back a troop increase in combination with a humanitarian package, an international effort and an exit strategy. His biggest worry, he said, is that the Pentagon will push Obama to funnel even more troops into the region. Grijalva described “an uneasiness” toward Obama’s strategy among progressive lawmakers. “We want this administration to succeed,” he said. But some Members feel that “instinctively and politically, we are being pulled in a direction where we don’t want to go.”

...One prominent anti-war lawmaker, who requested anonymity because he was still working out his position on the issue, said he is “very troubled” by Obama’s plan because it leaves the United States in the position of remaking a foreign country. “That whole exercise in nation-building, I’m not at all sure we’re capable of doing it,” the lawmaker said. “We may be biting off much more than we can chew and doing what we shouldn’t do. There’s ‘mission creep.’ You start doing one thing and you know, it’s there.”

...Other lawmakers were more visible — and blunt — about their lack of enthusiasm for Obama’s plan. “It stinks,” House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.) said. “It may be that the smartest guy in America is about to make one mistake.” “No,” Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) replied when asked if he supports Obama’s plan. “We need to find a way to end the conflicts without the military. I’m not voting for anything with a troop increase.”

Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) dismissed the idea that anti-war lawmakers are staying quiet on Afghanistan and said he continues to raise questions about Obama’s policy. “I have this sinking feeling we’re going to get ourselves involved in a war that has no end,” he said, noting that he will vote against any legislation that funds troops for Afghanistan.

Referring to a Tuesday meeting between Obama officials and select House Members to discuss Afghanistan policy, McGovern said he used that forum to raise concerns with Obama’s plans. “I feel even more certain that my concerns are validated as a result of that briefing today,” McGovern said. “You need a clearly defined mission, which means that you need a beginning, a middle and an end. ... I haven’t heard any of that.”

As to Senators, Russell Feingold said "The proposed military escalation in Afghanistan, without an adequate strategy in Pakistan, could make the situation worse, not better," while independent Bernie Sanders has said he's not supportive of troop escalation and has tactfully voiced his dissent.

The last thing in the world that I want to see is our new President -- who I have a lot of confidence in in many respects -- we don't want to see him bogged down the way LBJ was bogged down in Vietnam.  We don't want to see another war in Iraq, which was so disastrous in so many respects.

Meanwhile, top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, Representative John McHugh, has urged his GOP colleagues to back Obama's plan but call for even more troops, saying Republicans must not allow a "minimalist approach to creep into the new strategy" and that calls for benchmarks shouldn't be used "to narrow the president?s strategy under the guise of accountability."

Benchmarks are either secret or non-existent for the White House, obstacles to escalation for the GOP and, so far, a lack they don't want to draw attention to for Dem congresscritters. I expect that will change as time goes on, if the White House continues not to explain the metrics which will prevent a "blank check" scenario.

Update: McClatchy reports that Michele Flournoy, the undersecretary of defense for policy, admitted to Congress that the administration hasn't developed the benchmarks yet. But General Petraeus says the situation is so dire the White House might need to order another 10,000 troops - which with what's already on the way would exceed the number the military originally asked for.

This is practically the definition of metric-free mission creep.

Comments

[RAM]

Here's what's going to happen: We're going to spend boatloads of money, we're going to watch hundreds of our young men and women get killed, and we'll see thousands of Afghans killed. And then, eventually, we'll leave and Afghanistan will have defeated yet another would-be nation builder. You can make book on it.

[Steve Hynd]

I wouldn't bet against you, RAM.

Regards, Steve