Aaron David Miller: Obama's Withdrawal Doctrine
[Aaron David Miller, a former U.S. Middle East negotiator, is a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and author of the forthcoming book, Can America Have Another Great President?.]
With the exception of Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt, 20th-century wars haven't been kind to American presidents; 21st-century wars promise to be even crueler.
Welcome to Libya, Mr. President. You've got your very own 21st-century war, where the goals are as diffuse as the means at your disposal to accomplish them. Having chosen to double down in Afghanistan, you now own two of them -- Afghanistan and Libya. To get out of the former, your military advisors argued, you first had to get in deeper. And you chose to do so.
In Libya, another war of choice, you are now confronted with many of the same contradictions, impossible choices, and hard decisions that these other conflicts pose. Yes, Libya isn't Iraq or Afghanistan; it may well be a good war fought for sound moral and humanitarian purposes -- but it's also a complicated war. To put it mildly, like the other two conflicts, getting in may be a lot easier than getting out, despite all rhetoric to the contrary.
America's 21st-century wars are all different, but they do have similar challenges. The standard for success in these wars isn't whether the United States can win decisively, but when it can leave. And extrication and exit, the domestic headline of these conflicts, is a tactical nightmare, particularly if Washington wants to persuade its allies and adversaries that it plans to stay until it prevails.
Then there is the question of clarity of objective. What were U.S. objectives in Iraq? To destroy Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction? Get rid of him? Build a new Iraq? Promote a democracy in the heart of the Middle East? All of the above?..
Read entire article at Foreign Policy
With the exception of Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt, 20th-century wars haven't been kind to American presidents; 21st-century wars promise to be even crueler.
Welcome to Libya, Mr. President. You've got your very own 21st-century war, where the goals are as diffuse as the means at your disposal to accomplish them. Having chosen to double down in Afghanistan, you now own two of them -- Afghanistan and Libya. To get out of the former, your military advisors argued, you first had to get in deeper. And you chose to do so.
In Libya, another war of choice, you are now confronted with many of the same contradictions, impossible choices, and hard decisions that these other conflicts pose. Yes, Libya isn't Iraq or Afghanistan; it may well be a good war fought for sound moral and humanitarian purposes -- but it's also a complicated war. To put it mildly, like the other two conflicts, getting in may be a lot easier than getting out, despite all rhetoric to the contrary.
America's 21st-century wars are all different, but they do have similar challenges. The standard for success in these wars isn't whether the United States can win decisively, but when it can leave. And extrication and exit, the domestic headline of these conflicts, is a tactical nightmare, particularly if Washington wants to persuade its allies and adversaries that it plans to stay until it prevails.
Then there is the question of clarity of objective. What were U.S. objectives in Iraq? To destroy Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction? Get rid of him? Build a new Iraq? Promote a democracy in the heart of the Middle East? All of the above?..