Afstan: McChrystal report hits the fan/Obama changing position?

Bob Woodward of the Washington Post scoops the poop at length (conclusion of this post: "What a scaling down of goals and reasons. And what an excuse to limit any force increases."):

McChrystal: More Forces or 'Mission Failure'
Top U.S. Commander For Afghan War Calls Next 12 Months Decisive
...
Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal says emphatically: "Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near-term (next 12 months) -- while Afghan security capacity matures -- risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible."

His assessment was sent to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates on Aug. 30 and is now being reviewed by President Obama and his national security team.

McChrystal concludes the document's five-page Commander's Summary on a note of muted optimism: "While the situation is serious, success is still achievable."

But he repeatedly warns that without more forces and the rapid implementation of a genuine counterinsurgency strategy, defeat is likely. McChrystal describes an Afghan government riddled with corruption and an international force undermined by tactics that alienate civilians.

He provides extensive new details about the Taliban insurgency, which he calls a muscular and sophisticated enemy [emphasis added] that uses modern propaganda and systematically reaches into Afghanistan's prisons to recruit members and even plan operations...

The commander has prepared a separate detailed request for additional troops and other resources, but defense officials have said he is awaiting instructions before sending it [emphasis added] to the Pentagon [more here]...

McChrystal makes clear that his call for more forces is predicated on the adoption of a strategy in which troops emphasize protecting Afghans rather than killing insurgents or controlling territory [more here and here]. Most starkly, he says: "[I]nadequate resources will likely result in failure. However, without a new strategy, the mission should not be resourced."...

McChrystal is...critical of the command he has led since June 15. The key weakness of ISAF, he says, is that it is not aggressively defending the Afghan population. "Pre-occupied with protection of our own forces, we have operated in a manner that distances us -- physically and psychologically -- from the people we seek to protect. . . . The insurgents cannot defeat us militarily; but we can defeat ourselves."..

He...calls for "radically more integrated and partnered" work with Afghan units [more here and here]...

McChrystal identifies three main insurgent groups "in order of their threat to the mission" and provides significant details about their command structures and objectives.

The first is the Quetta Shura Taliban (QST) headed by Mullah Omar, who fled Afghanistan after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and operates from the Pakistani city of Quetta...

The second main insurgency group is the Haqqani network (HQN), which is active in southeastern Afghanistan [more like "eastern" actually] and draws money and manpower "principally from Pakistan, Gulf Arab networks, and from its close association with al Qaeda and other Pakistan-based insurgent groups." At another point in the assessment, McChrystal says, "Al Qaeda's links with HQN have grown, suggesting that expanded HQN control could create a favorable environment" for associated extremist movements "to re-establish safe-havens in Afghanistan."..[Update: "Pakistan's offensive against the Taliban has failed to target the insurgent networks posing the greatest danger to Nato forces in Afghanistan, according to America's Ambassador in Islamabad", i.e. Quetta Shurra and Haqqani.]

The third is the Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin insurgency, which maintains bases in three Afghan provinces "as well as Pakistan," the assessment says. This network, led by the former mujaheddin commander Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, "aims to negotiate a major role in a future Taliban government. He does not currently have geographical objectives as is the case with the other groups,"..

Overall, McChrystal provides this conclusion about the enemy: "The insurgents control or contest a significant portion of the country [emphasis added], although it is difficult to assess precisely how much due to a lack of ISAF presence [map from April 23, 2009, here, more]. . . . "

As for the president:

...
Instead of debating whether to give McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, more troops, the discussion in the White House is now focused on whether, after eight years of war, the United States should vastly expand counterinsurgency efforts along the lines he has proposed -- which involve an intensive program to improve security and governance in key population centers -- or whether it should begin shifting its approach away from such initiatives and simply target leaders of terrorist groups who try to return to Afghanistan....

Obama, appearing on several Sunday-morning television news shows, left little doubt that key assumptions in the earlier White House strategy are now on the table...

National security adviser James L. Jones said Sunday that McChrystal's assessment "will be analyzed as to whether it is in sync with the strategy that the president announced in March."

The assessment "could be accepted in its entirety," Jones said. Alternatively, he added, the White House could seek additional analysis from McChrystal, or Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates could issue new guidance to him about his mission and strategy...

President Obama on NBC's Meet the Press Sept. 20:

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From the transcript:

...DAVID GREGORY: Let me ask you about another important issue facing you and your administration, and that is Afghanistan. We've now been in Afghanistan for eight years. The Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan after ten years. Are we committed to this war for an indefinite period of time? Or do you think, in your mind, is there a deadline for withdrawal?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: I don't have a deadline for withdrawal. But I'm certainly not somebody who believes in indefinite occupations of other countries. Keep in mind what happened when I came in. We had been adrift, I think, when it came to our Afghanistan strategy. And what I said was that we are going to do a top to bottom review of what's taking place there.

Not just a one time review, but we're gonna do a review before the election in Afghanistan, and then we're gonna do another review after the election. And we are gonna see how this is fitting what, I think, is our core goal. Which is to go after the folks who killed the 3,000 Americans during 9/11, and who are still plotting to kill us, al Qaeda. How do we dismantle them, disrupt them, destroy them [emphasis added]?

Now, getting our strategy right in Afghanistan and in Pakistan are both important elements of that. But that's our goal. And I want to stay focused on that. And— and so, right now, what's happened is that we've had an election in Afghanistan. It did not go as smoothly as I think we would have hoped. And there are some serious issues in terms of how that— how the election was conducted in some parts of the country. But we've had that election. We now finally have the 21,000 troops in place that I had already ordered to go.

DAVID GREGORY: Are you skeptical about more troops? About sending more troops?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, can I just say this? I am— I have to exercise skepticism anytime I send a single young man or woman in uniform into harm's way. Because I'm the one who's answerable to their parents if they don't come home. So I have to ask some very hard questions anytime I send our troops in.

The question that I'm asking right now is to our military, to General McChrystal, to General Petraeus, to all our national security apparatus, is— whether it's troops who are already there, or any troop request in the future, how does this advance America's national security interests? How does it make sure that al Qaeda and its extremist allies cannot attack the United States homeland, our allies, our troops who are based in Europe?

That's the question that I'm constantly asking because that's the primary threat that we went there to deal with. And if— if supporting the Afghan national government, and building capacity for their army, and securing certain provinces advances that strategy, then we'll move forward [emphasis added].

But, if it doesn't, then I'm not interested in just being in Afghanistan for the sake of being in Afghanistan or saving face or, in some way— you know, sending a message that America— is here for— for the duration. I think it's important that we match strategy to resources.

What I'm not also gonna do, though, is put the resource question before the strategy question. Until I'm satisfied that we've got the right strategy I'm not gonna be sending some young man or woman over there- beyond what we already have...

But this was the president in March:

...
For the Afghan people, a return to Taliban rule would condemn their country to brutal governance, international isolation, a paralyzed economy, and the denial of basic human rights to the Afghan people -- especially women and girls. The return in force of al Qaeda terrorists who would accompany the core Taliban leadership would cast Afghanistan under the shadow of perpetual violence...

So I want the American people to understand that we have a clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future. That's the goal that must be achieved. That is a cause that could not be more just. And to the terrorists who oppose us, my message is the same: We will defeat you [i.e. win ]...

There is an uncompromising core of the Taliban. They must be met with force, and they must be defeated [emphasis added]...

...The world cannot afford the price that will come due if Afghanistan slides back into chaos or al Qaeda operates unchecked. We have a shared responsibility to act -- not because we seek to project power for its own sake, but because our own peace and security depends on it. And what’s at stake at this time is not just our own security -- it's the very idea that free nations can come together on behalf of our common security. That was the founding cause of NATO six decades ago, and that must be our common purpose today...

So now it's effectively just about al Qaeda, and basically forget about Afstan itself, its people, and what the Taliban resurgent might do there. Forget about any moral obligation to the country that might result from having been instrumental in forcing out the Taliban regime in 2001. And forget about "common security"; note that there is no mention of NATO or Allies in the answers to David Gregory.

What a scaling down of goals and reasons. And what an excuse to limit any force increases.

Update: As to why the report was, er, leaked:

Norman Spector at Spector Vision:

...In Washington...the Generals have lobbed a missile straight at the President...

Paul at Celestial Junk:

When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature, they will like the strong horse. ~ OBL

...The leak of McChrystal's report is high stakes politics in which Afghanistan is now made Obama's baby ... if he doesn't comply with military requests, a loss in Afghanistan will be on his shoulders...

More from Mr Spector in "Comments" (10:54):

Part of the surprise is that Obama told Americans during the election campaign that Iraq was the bad war and Afghanistan the good one. We're about to learn whether that was just rhetoric--as it was for Jean Chretien when he sent ground troops to Afghanistan as a way to stay out of Iraq--or whether Obama meant it.

Upperdate: The Washington Post reaches a similar conclusion.

Uppestdate:

Afstan: Text of the McChystal Report to Defense Secretary Gates