Pat is Wrong Posted by Ilan Goldenberg

So I don't usually like to have intra-blog debates but I feel like I have to fire back at Pat about his critique of my post on Obama's options in Afghanistan.

First, Pat dismisses the all in approach as irrelevant.

First we have the ‘all-in’ approach.  I’d start by asking whether the basic premise of this plan isn't flawed at its core, since our troop commitments to Iraq, the strain on our military, the economic crisis, and competing strategic priorities make a limitless engagement of the kind described by Senators McCain and Lieberman completely unrealistic. An all-in style approach is probably the closest you can credibly get. 

I agree that it would be nuts.  But it is still politically relevant.  John McCain was the Republican nominee for President only five months ago.  And while it's unlikely that Obama would choose this option, it is an option that is being pushed by Fred Kagan and Max Boot and may have been supported by people who only six months ago ran this country.  You can't exactly call it irrelevant.  I thought it was crazy in late 2006 to put another 40,000 troops into Iraq given that the place was falling apart and the American public had just very clearly expressed its discontent with the President by voting in a Democratic congress.  But the President did it.

Instead Pat writes

The strategy that comes closest to the all-in approach, while still being legitimate, is CAP's 10-year plan for Afghanistan.

OK.  So basically by slight of hand Pat just replaced the Max Boot and Fred Kagan plan with Larry Korb and the Center for American Progress.  He then argues that Larry Korb is not all that different than Barack Obama and there is therefore not much of a difference between the all in approach and something along the middle path.  I feel that Larry and our friends at CAP wouldn't be too happy about this interpertation. 

Pat then goes on to argue that the Get Afghanistan Right approach also shouldn't count in his analysis, despite the fact that it represents an important constituency in the Democratic portion.  Instead he presents Les Gelb as the central minimalist option and then says Gelb isn't all that different than the middle path.  I think Pat has a point about tying Gelb and GAR together.  It's not clear they are necessarily both minimalist and Gelb clearly lies somewhere between GAR and the middle approach.  But Gelb's plan very specifically calls for putting a clear timetable on the whole thing and for focusing most on containment and detterence instead of truly trying to make major changes on the ground.  And as we all remember from the Iraq debate, that point is critical.  It sends all kinds of signals across the region and also has a major impact on the political frame in the United States.  And is a point where he and folks like Alex Thurston agree.

So basically at the end what Pat manages to do is dismiss all the stark options as irrelevant or unrealistic.  But just because he views them that way does not mean they don't exist.  They do.  And important constituencies on the American political spectrum are pushing for them. 

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