Gobsmacked?
You have to laugh about the denizens of the political right who are shocked at Barack Obama's moderation: who were they expecting for Secretary of Defense, Louis Farrakhan? Jeremiah Wright at State? Much of this is a result of the right drinking its own koolaid: the mythology of Obama being some sort of crypto-lefty, "associated" with people like William Ayres and Wright, rather than the moderate realist who sent signals throughout the campaign that he was looking to people like Gates and Jones to join his team.
And now we have Max Boot "gobsmacked" by the excellent Obama security choices, which Boot sees as a sign that Obama is going to have a foreign policy not so distant from, well, neoconservatism:
This all but puts an end to the 16-month timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, the unconditional summits with dictators, and other foolishness that once emanated from the Obama campaign. His appointments suggest that, if anything, his administration will have a Reapolitiker, rather than a liberal, bent, although Clinton and Steinberg at State should be powerful voices for “neo-liberalism” which is not so different in many respects from “neo-conservativism”.
There are several problems with this. First of all, a 16-month withdrawal timetable would get you somewhere into the middle of 2010, well within the ballpark of the Iraqi government's own timetable--but then, Obama never said that 16 months was rock solid. He always said it was flexible, dependent upon events on the ground. Right now, the open question is how backloaded the withdrawal will be. Some--like General Jack Kean, security expert Ken Pollack and others--would like to see the bulk of the troops withdrawn only after the Iraqis have their regional and national elections in 2009. Others want a steady withdrawal, starting in January, with enough troops withdrawn and their replacements sent to Afghanistan in order to secure the crucial Afghan elections in September 2009. My guess is the a compromise will be worked out between the two groups, with two or three combat brigade in Afghanistan by late spring...and that we'll be down to a residual force in Iraq months before 2011 rolls around. (By the way, if my guess is accurate, the Army should have those brigades training right now for mountains rather than deserts. I've spoken with several senior military officers who are quite concerned that this hasn't yet happened. )
Second, the notion of having immediate summits with our enemies--especially Mahmoud Ahmadinejad-- was another right-wing distortion of Obama's actual position, which was to initiate lower level talks and gradually build to summits that would not have crippling preconditions (such as the Bush Administration's insistence that the Iranians stop creating nuclear fuel). Obama's campaign position still stands.
Finally, a more careful look at the new team will indicate that people like Clinton, Jones and Gates have never supported the sort of bellicose foreign policy that John McCain and his neoconservative staff was offering. Gates was quietly opposed to permanent bases in Iraq and supportive of increased contact with Iran and a new emphasis on the situation in Afghanistan. Gates' new Obama-approved staff--people like Richard Danzig and Michele Flournoy--are big fans of counterinsurgency warfare a la Petraeus, but like Petraeus (and unlike McCain) will be careful not to over-apply the "lessons" of Iraq in a very different theater. Jones was so opposed to the war in Iraq that he refused to serve as Centcom Commander and as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs when asked by Bush. He was brutally honest about the difficulties of nation-building in Iraq and the resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan. He signed an international petition against the Bush Administration's use of torture.
What Boot and the neocons will have to come to terms with now is that they were wrong and they have lost. There is a new national security alliance between multilateralist Democrats and realist Republicans--an alliance that precludes the witless bellicosity of the neoconservative right and the small strain of pacifist idealists on the left. The policy of the new administration will favor diplomacy over the use of force. That is not to say that Obama will never use force--but when he does, the chances are he'll likely known the difference between the local Shi'ites and Sunnis, Tajiks and Pashtuns. And so will his team.
And furthermore: Fred Kaplan on why Gates is an excellent choice.
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Das Boot is trying to salvage some small measure of credibility with a speculative "I told you so" analysis. The fact that his new assumptions are as wrong as his old ones is irrelevant, as no matter what happens he'll just invent yet another rationale and claim it's what he contended all along. It's a congenital thing with his crowd.
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"What Boot and the neocons will have to come to terms with now is that they were wrong and they have lost." Given the number of falsehoods in Boots "gobsmacked" column, I doubt if neocons are capable of coming to terms with reality. Boot is still trying to make reality conform to his delusions. It is what they do, it is who they are.
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The thing that needs to happen is that they be ridiculed, openly and persistently, and excluded from any place where they can do harm. Their positions are really not that much more based in reality than Palin's "I can see Russia from my house."
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Oh, and Happy Thanksgiving! -
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In other words Obama is not against all wars he's just against dumb wars. The Bush regime was so breathtakingly stupid and I continue to be stunned how this much incompetancy would not have insured their exit from the gene pool by now. At the very least you would think they would have ended up on an episode of America's dumbest criminals by now.
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Yes wvng at this point we should vote them off the island. And Happy Thankgiving to all too.
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Well, I'll be impressed when Joe Klein stops linking to the likes of Max Boot. You'll note that Klein does not bother to regularly check on Louis Farrakhan's latest pronouncements. That is for the best, but Boot deserves to be ignored as well. For all his bluster, Joe Klein can't quite wean himself off the Commentary teat. "I wish I could quit you, neocons!"
Klein reminds me of Kevin Drum, who would regularly link the the yahoos at The Corner. Even if Drum disagreed with whatever he quoted, I would find myself thinking "why are we even discussing the projectile punditry of Jonah Goldberg?"
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Oops. Forgot the obligatory paragraph spacers!
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[Dearest Swampland techies, please, please, please restore comments to something remotely usable.] -
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Joe Klein
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First of all Obama HAS in point of fact maintained that he will stick to his 16 month withdrawal plan. The only thing he gave himself wiggle room on was the rate of withdrawal each month. But the one time when the media tried to make it seem as if he was back tracking on his timeline he came right back out and went in front of the cameras and reiterated the 16 month timeline. Now thats spoken as somebody who would give him a pass certainly if it took a little longer because to me the safety of the soldiers is paramount.
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Secondly I wish that SOME MSM pundit would point out that Hillary Clinton ALSO said she would withdraw the troops from Iraq as quickly as possible. She just never committed to a definite time line. Here is what she had to say about it.
.Hillary Clinton: Have nearly all combat troops out in a year
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Q: Can you make a commitment that 16 months after your inauguration will be enough time for all combat troops to get out of Iraq?
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A: I certainly hope it will be. I hope to have nearly all of them out within a year.
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Source: 2008 Democratic debate in Los Angeles before Super Tuesday Jan 31, 2008.
Hillary Clinton: Withdraw one to two brigades in Iraq each month
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Q: Obama says he wants all combat troops out within 16 months of his inauguration. You haven't offered a specific end date. Why shouldn't voters worry that your position could turn into an open-ended commitment?
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A: Because I've been very clear in saying that I will begin to withdraw troops in 60 days. I believe that it will take me one to two brigades a month, depending on how many troops we have there, and that nearly all of them should be out within a year. It is imperative, though, that we actually plan and execute this right. Last spring, I got into quite a back-and-forth with the Pentagon, because I was concerned they were not planning for withdrawal, because that was contrary to their strategy, or their stated position. I began to press them to let us know, and they were very resistant, and gave only cursory information. I will ask the Joint Chiefs & my security advisers the very first day I'm president, to begin to draw up such a plan so that we can withdraw.
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Source: 2008 Democratic debate in Los Angeles before Super Tuesday Jan 31, 2008.
And finally can you ask Mark Halperin how it feels to give aide and comfort to Al Queda by agreeing with them about the press' Obama bias?
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Thanks in advance -
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Oh and happy thanksgiving to all
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So even when Boot tries to complimentary to Obama, he still gets it all wrong!
To Boot's employers: I can write columns just as wrong as Boot's, but I'll do it for half the money.
In these tough economic times, maybe you should consider my proposal.
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Mismatch: neocons/superlibs and any discourse reasonably approaching rationality. May all such thinking go the way of the dodo in favor of "global" centrism. We need to learn to live and work together. May this be yet another signal that the age of unilateralism and hyperpartisanship are dying a much-deserved death in favor of something better...could it be true civilization? Root of the word being..."civil"?
Happy Thanksgiving everyone, there's much to be grateful for, starting with a thinking president-to-be who, I dare say, also has a heart for more than rich cronies.
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" >.. enough troops withdrawn and their replacements sent to Afghanistan in order to secure the crucial Afghan elections in September 2009. .. "
"Hey, you Afghani, you MUST vote. You hear!"
Yes. "free and fair elections" in a "democratic" "sovereign" "state" - dictated by foreign occupiers at the barrel of a gun.
How novel!
It is a brave new world. -
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[...] Gobsmacked? … of counterinsurgency warfare a la Petraeus, but like Petraeus (and unlike McCain) will be careful not to over-apply the “lessons” of Iraq in a very different theater. Jones was so opposed to the war in Iraq that he refused to serve as Centcom Commander and as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs when asked by Bush. He … [...]
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I know that I am late to this party but I am offended by this post. I see it as an attempt by Joe Klein to help his friends, Keane and Pollack, rehabilitate their reputations from having jumped on board the neocon ship (which I am sure they now regret). I wonder why you didn't go ahead and throw O'Hanlon in there too Joe?
The rehabilitation of Keane is especially offensive as he was AEI and ran interference for the neocons at the Pentagon. Klein's slimy and obvious effort here underscores, again!, that Joe Klein too jumped on the neocon ship for a while. He just got off before the others. Klein must be approached with caution.
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