Mr Obama--This Isn't The Time To Kick Ass!

Rolling Stone magazine living up to its founding tradition as a pillar of the counterculture and deep opponent of the US War in Vietnam is bringing out an article on General Stanley McChrystal which has caused the overly sensitive Nice Young Man From Chicago and his henchmen to go ballistic. As a result General McChrystal has been forced to apologize for saying unkind words about various Team Obama heavyweights and has been recalled to Washington to explain his remarks to SecDef Gates and, presumably, the thin-skinned Obama.

Worse than this recall--which at the least serves to undercut McChrystal's moral authority in theater--the POTUS may well fire the man who has the best chance of pulling something less than total defeat out of the Afghanistan morass. Should Mr Obama take this action either directly or using a safe cut-out such as Secretary Gates or Admiral Mullen, it would constitute a self-inflicted wound with potentially fatal consequences.

In the upcoming profile style article, General McChrystal and his staff are reported to have made less than flattering comments about (1) Vice President Biden, (2) Obama Special Envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke and (3) US Ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry. Others high in the ranks of Team Obama may have been skewered as well, since only Hilary Clinton was reputedly unscathed. (It is to be hoped that had Mr Gates been the target of a barb or two that his vast experience in Washington has served to cushion their impact.)

The foundation for the critical comments made by either McChrystal or members of his staff resides in the events of last Fall during the unnecessarily prolonged pseudo-debate over the correct American strategy for Afghanistan and the number of additional troops which would be needed to execute that strategy effectively. The Obama orchestrated exercise in foot-dragging was marked by leaked memos, rumors, counter-rumors, and other sorts of typically mean and petty bureaucratic infighting.

It was at this time that Ambassador Eikenberry leaked documents which were critical of McChrystal's request for extra men as well as casting aspersions on both the character and election of Hamid Karzai. To infer that Eikenberry's CYA oriented exercise torqued off General McChrystal and others genuinely seeking a path other than defeat by which to exit Afghanistan would be an exercise in accuracy.

It deserves mention that Ambassador Eikenberry's most undiplomatic excoriation of Afghanistan's president not only hindered General McChrystal but also marked the beginning of the steep and slippery downward slope of Afghan-US relations which has continued to date. The ventilation of frustration and anger with Eikenberry's self-serving act in the presence of a journalist was most unwise, most unfortunate, and most regrettable. But, the basis of the charge was both accurate and fair.

McChrystal and others have been frustrated and angered by Special Envoy Holbrooke as well. Mr Holbrooke has made the mistake of reading and believing his own press releases with the result that he considers himself to be The World's Leading Expert on Hostilities Termination and Conflict Resolution. This preposterously inflated self-assessment is based upon Mr Holbrook's role in brokering the Dayton Peace Accords, which played a less than considerable part in helping bring the ethnic and religiously based violence scarring former Yugoslavia to an end. The hosannas sung to Mr Holbrooke by press and Bill Clinton's White House do not merit Mr Holbrooke's conclusion that he Knows Everything Worth Knowing about both the political and military aspects of interventionary operations. If Mr Holbrooke's emails drip the same smugness and rectitude his remarks on camera and before Congress do, it is easy to see why General McChrystal and his staff are more than a tad annoyed to receive them.

Vice-President Biden is, of course, a cretin. Joe (The Biggest Mouth This Side Of Hugo Chavez) made his intellectually challenged position abundantly clear during the "debate" over AfPak strategy when he seriously proposed that the US withdraw from Afghanistan. At the same time we would cover Pakistan or at least the FATA with horizon-to-horizon swarms of Predators and Reapers so as to snipe al-Qaeda members at very low risk to ourselves.

The fact that this ludicrous idea was not met immediately with gales of derisive laughter but rather was given what appeared to be a respectful hearing in the corridors of power speaks volumes as to the level of strategic and operational thinking (that word used generically only) in the Obama administration. If General McChrystal was called upon to explain to the Policy Level wallahs just what was wrong with War According To Joe, full justification for any number of statements of jocose persiflage is to be found.

Gates and Mullen have engaged in preemptive damage limitation. Both men have severely chastised General McChrystal. This was done, not because the general deserved it but rather in the hopes it might head off some disastrous presidential act of pique.

The word on the street is President Obama likes everything "nicey-nicey" around him. Only the POTUS is allowed to have a temper tantrum, to show outrage, or, even, to be pissed off. We all know that Mr Obama has been looking for some "ass" to kick.

If the president is not in a hurry to be in the Oval while the US loses the war in Afghanistan, he had best decide that General McChrystal does not possess an ass worthy of kicking.