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General McChrystal's Screw Up - The Daily Beast

*[image: BS Top - Gelb McChrystal Screwup]General Stanley McChrystal arrives
to attend the 13th Joint Coordination and Monitoring Board (JCMB) meeting in
Kabul, Afghanistan on January 20th, 2010. (Photo: Musadeq Sadeq / AP Photo)The
basic truth is that the military just doesn’t like Democrats, says Leslie H.
Gelb. But firing one general is enough for one war. Let him stay—and talk
honestly about strategy.*

Here’s the real story behind the nasty, anti-Obama remarks by General
Stanley McChrystal and his staff inRolling
Stone<http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/119236#>.
The U.S. military, officers and enlisted ranks don’t like and don’t trust
Democrats and liberals. The bad feelings are mainly about values, style and
constancy more than policy. The military feel the Democrats come at common
problems from a different place and don’t stick to agreed plans when the
going gets rough. The Rolling Stone article barely mentions policy
differences over Afghanistan or anything else. And whether or not Mr. Obama
fires the U.S./NATO commander, there’s likely to be a firestorm of criticism
about the White House, perhaps reaching Tea Party proportions.

Whatever righteous anger McChrystal had on his side, whatever good grounds
for complaints, he and his staff had no business, and no right under the
chain of command whatsoever, to say what they did to the Rolling Stone
reporter, or anyone else.

After all, the nation is at war, and Americans haven’t seen such a spectacle
since President Truman fired General Douglas MacArthur during the Korean
War. Well, actually, there was a similar trauma with the military less than
two years ago when President Obama
fired<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124206036635107351.html> Gen.
David McKiernan, then U.S./NATO commander for Afghanistan, for not being
sufficiently enthusiastic about conducting a counterinsurgency strategy
against the Taliban. McChrystal, a known enthusiast for just such a
strategy, was selected as his replacement, and the noise about McKiernan
quickly faded. Criticism of the White House was also smothered by the fact
that Gen. David Petraeus, the overall regional commander, strongly endorsed
both a counterterrorism strategy and McChrystal. Suffice it to say that
McKiernan had many allies in the military and his summary dismissal by Mr.
Obama was not forgotten.

• James Hoge: McChrystal Must Go
<http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-06-22/why-obama-must-fire-gen-mcchrystal-over-rolling-stone-quotes/>

• Harold Evans: How to Fire a
General<http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-06-22/how-obama-should-handle-mcchrystal/>

• Excerpts from McChrystal’s Rolling Stone Interview
<http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-06-22/rolling-stone-mcchrystal-interview-should-obama-have-to-fire-him/>

•View Our Gallery of More Loose-lipped Public
Servants<http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-06-22/loose-lips/>Also
very much at the forefront of military minds is the president’s push to
eliminate “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” guidelines regarding gays and lesbians
serving in uniform <http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/02/02/gays.military/>.
It's hard to get a fix on what percentage of the military approves of, or is
willing to go along with, gays serving openly in the armed forces. But there
is at the very least a strong minority fanatically opposed to a repeal of
the policy. And this latter group appreciates that Republicans never would
have promoted this idea. This issue is encased in an even greater tension
between the military and the Democrats over religion. A large percentage of
the military considers itself strongly Christian and feels that Republicans
are more accepting of the faith than Democrats are. All this contributes to
a broader us-versus-them conflict over values.

Stylistic tensions only make everything else worse. Military officers
believe they don’t know where Democrats stand toward them whereas
Republicans let them know clearly whether they agree or disagree with
military positions. In my own experience, there is truth to this.
Republicans and Democrats both will differ from military views on budgets
and policy, but Republicans are more likely to just say so outright.
Democrats, who sense military misgivings, try to fudge the differences in
order to ingratiate themselves. It doesn’t work and only adds to the
distrust.

Perhaps most importantly in wartime, the military feel that Republicans are
much more likely to stay the course than Democrats. Most Democrats were war
hawks on Vietnam, only to become doves as the war dragged on and costs
mounted. A Republican Secretary of Defense Mel Laird guided U.S. withdrawals
from that conflict, but never pretended he was trying to win, and the
military admired his candor. Many Democrats supported George W. Bush’s
invasion of Iraq, only to split off soon thereafter. And as far as the
military is concerned, they smell the same sense of retreat coming from the
Obama White House over Afghanistan. Obama once proclaimed the need to
"defeat" the enemy in that country and now seems to be suggesting
withdrawals that the uniforms deem premature.
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Now, I must say two things from a personal and professional standpoint. I
was opposed to the military’s 30,000-man surge in Afghanistan that Obama
approved. But once the president approved the increase, I did back the
decision. I felt my only alternative was to rail against the night - not my
thing. Now, I do believe it’s time to adopt a flexible plan for U.S. troop
reductions down to a low base for continuing support and combat operations.

I talk often to military officers about this. They don’t like it, but our
conversations are serious and constructive. They aren’t having the same kind
of talks with the White House, and they truly don’t know where the president
stands. Is it with Vice President Joe Biden who wants something similar to
my idea, or is it with Secretaries Bob Gates and Hillary Clinton who wish to
take a “conditions-based” approach?

On top of this uncertainty, the military is all too aware that there’s a lot
of evidence that the war is going badly. They believe it’s too early to make
final judgments, but feel the White House has made some already. It’s bad
news that they haven’t talked to each other seriously about the possible
unwinnability of the war.

The other point I need to make is that I am friends, and even good friends,
with a number of the administration and military principals. The whole lot
mentioned unfavorably in the Rolling Stone story—the president, Joe Biden,
National Security Adviser Gen. James Jones, Special Representative Richard
Holbrooke, Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, and more – are the best the nation
has to offer. That’s true in spades for Stan McChrystal as well. You
couldn’t have a better military commander. But he is no politician, and
truth be told, one can’t command a war now or ever without being a
politician.

Whatever righteous anger McChrystal had on his side, whatever good grounds
for complaints, he and his staff had no business, and no right under the
chain of command whatsoever, to say what they did to the Rolling Stone
reporter, or anyone else. As they understand far better than the rest of us,
they are at war; the lives of our men and women are at stake, and so are the
fortunes of the United States. Commanders should salute in public and in
notable private conversations. Period. End of story. If they disagree with
policy, take it up the chain of command, vigorously, but privately.

True to his good instincts, Gen. McChrystal quickly apologized for what he
and his staff said. And I believe he did so sincerely. This is a good man.

I don’t want to see another change of command in Afghanistan. Booting Gen.
McKiernan was enough for one war. Perhaps, somehow, the White House can work
it out and must do so in the closest consultations with Defense Secretary
Gates, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen, and General
Petraeus.

President Reagan and his Chief of Staff James Baker had plenty ground to
fire their budget director David Stockman in the early '80s when he
frontally trashed Reagan’s tax-cutting policy. Instead, they took him
publicly to the "woodshed" for a hard spanking and subsequent recantation.
Such insubordination is worse in war than in budgeting, but somehow I’d
prefer the woodshed to the ash heap. Let the general’s very bad mistake be
the occasion for a serious, no-baloney conversation between the White House
and the Pentagon brass on Afghanistan. It is the minimum decent thing to do
for the troops.

*Leslie H. Gelb, a former New York Times columnist and senior government
official, is author of *Power Rules: How Common Sense Can Rescue American
Foreign Policy<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0061714542/thedaibea-20>
*(HarperCollins 2009), a book that shows how to think about and use power in
the 21st century. He is president emeritus of the Council on Foreign
Relations.*

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Eric D. Schwerin
Rosemont Seneca Partners
(202) 333-1880
eschwerin@rosemontseneca.co