Right Back At You, Jim Posted by Michael Cohen

Over the past few days, Jim Arkedis over at Progressive Fix and I have been having a bit of back and forth about Obama's Afghanistan decision. Often these sorts of intra-blog battles can get tedious, but this one is actually sort of interesting and speaks to the issues facing the progressive community.

What's interesting about Jim's latest post titled "The Need for Progressives to Make Tough Choices on Security" is that he doesn't really engage with my overarching argument that progressives should not simply stand and salute and follow the President's course of action in Afghanistan. This is basically what he and his boss Will Marshall are saying. And I quote:

Whatever course he chooses, the President will need his party’s understanding and support to succeed. If Democrats fall out over Afghanistan, he won’t be able to sustain a coherent policy, and the public will likely lose confidence in the party’s ability to manage the nation’s security.

And while I don't doubt that Jim thinks that Obama is making the right choice, the argument being made here to progressives is a pretty political one. For example, if "whatever course" the President chooses included sending 80,000 troops to Afghanistan should progressives be supportive? We pretty much know what the reaction of our non-adult party will be so it really is incumbent upon progressives to hold the President's feet to the fire and not blindly follow his course because as Jim writes, "President Obama has far superior information on the subject than either of us." A lot of people had good information on the threat that Iraq posed in 2003 and guess what, they don't get an A for decision-making. I mean jeez, Lyndon Johnson was a pretty progressive guy.

But the funny about this kerfuffle is Jim's notion that touch choices on national security involve sending more troops into harm's way. I would make the argument that military escalation is in some ways the easier choice - explaining why Afghanistan is not in the national interest or that the threat from al Qaeda really isn't the significant or that the generals are wrong about the need for more troops or that there are limitations on US military power or that this really isn't a war of necessity - now that would actually represent a much more difficult political choice and a far more difficult argument. Doing the bidding of the generals is, in some respects, the more politically expedient choice, particularly when you don't have a groundswell of progressives pushing back on the feverish dreams of the COINdanistas.

I don't say this to suggest that Obama's decision to send more troops to Afghanistan is one that he is taking lightly. I don't believe that at all. But even tough, well-reasoned decisions to use military force can be wrong. The simple fact is that over the past few decades - more often than not - they have been. And what's worse the potential consequences of those decisions have been ignored or under-appreciated. (See Iraq War: 2003 - Present)

Comments

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