Memo from Kabul

The popular argument surrounding the development of President Obama's Afghanistan strategy is the administration's narrative of a considerate, well thought out approach versus the opposition's characterization of "dithering." Both are myths, as exposed by "secret" government documents published this week in the New York Times.

The classified communications sent by Ambassador Karl Eikenberry to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were "leaked" by "senior U.S. officials" within days of their receipt last November, but until now the documents themselves had not been published. These State Department cables don't reveal military strategy, but they do expose embarrassing, behind-the-scenes details of the Obama administration's 'Afghan policy" to the light of day.

The Times story accompanying the memos is hardly notable; that the Obama administration felt "President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan is not an adequate strategic partner and continues to shun responsibility for any sovereign burden" isn't news. The obsession with fixing Karzai first is well known (if not well-reported) and has already cost a year of potential progress in Afghanistan.

So what's truly notable here isn't the rehash of old news in the Times coverage (always the White House's paper of choice for messaging) but the revelation by the U.S. Ambassador to Kabul in memos to the US Secretary of State that the President of Afghanistan was an afterthought for inclusion in any discussion regarding the future of his nation. "Before any troop announcement," Eikenberry cautioned, "we should first have a high-level dialogue with Karzai and his new government to explain our goals and obtain agreement on what we expect from them." Sound advice - and seemingly obvious, but why it seemed necessary to make so obvious a statement so late in the process seems equally (and unfortunately) obvious, too.

But it's the second cable that will leave those with an interest in America's wartime foreign policy stunned; in it Eikenberry reveals that those who felt the President was considering all available options (whether deliberately and thoughtfully or timidly and far too slowly) were all being had.

"I now propose that the White House commission a deliberate process to lay out the range of strategic options on Afghanistan and Pakistan," he wrote last November as the "debate" (then presumably on options) neared its conclusion, "broadening the analysis beyond military counterinsurgency doctrine."

"We must consider a wider set of variables before reaching a final decision."

That we had not done so one year after the election of a president who claimed Afghanistan was the central front of the war on terror seems to defy belief. But even after last March's much-heralded "new Af/Pak policy" and the further (and seemingly endless) "debate" on the issue last fall, Eikenberry - Barack Obama's hand-picked man in Afghanistan - asserts that "we have not yet conducted a comprehensive, interdisciplinary analysis of all our strategic options. Nor have we brought all the real-world variables to bear in testing the proposed counterinsurgency plan." Given the reporting on Afghanistan strategy - and the countless contributions from media and think-tank experts over the past several months - it defies belief that the administration itself had not actually conducted it's own comprehensive review. But no matter what you may have heard over the past year, it's beyond conceivable that such an effort could possibly have been conducted without the awareness of the top American civilian in Kabul.

There's no doubt that as desperately as such a thoughtful review process is needed prior to sending thousands of American troops into harm's way, the Obama administration would have been handed a public relations nightmare had they acknowledged the failure as late as November, 2009. After October became the month with the highest American casualties in the war, the president had appeared for a photo op with flag-draped caskets ("The images and the sentiment of the president's five-hour trip to Delaware were intended by the White House to convey to the nation that Mr. Obama was not making his Afghanistan decision lightly or in haste," the New York Times reported at the time) and Eikenberry's revelation just days later can easily be seen as evidence that the event was something of a fraud.

But while he might have known his cause was hopeless, the retired general pointed out (correctly - from a logistical standpoint) that because tens of thousands of troops couldn't deploy immediately, there actually was still time to consider specifics of strategy - and coordinate with allies on the debate.

Not that he felt no sense of urgency. Though long overdue his called-for review of options could be accomplished "by the end of the year" - and "include or lead to high-level talks with Afghans, the Pakistanis, the Saudis, and other important regional players," communications that many might have assumed were ongoing as a matter of course. Even more stunningly, he added "NATO, its component nations, and even the United Nations" to the list. But with growing public pressure from opponents and allies alike, the time for anything but a unilateral decision - at least from the point of view of the decision makers in Washington - had passed.

Still, "I believe there is no option but to widen the scope of our analysis to consider alternatives beyond a strictly military counterinsurgency effort within Afghanistan," Eikenberry argued in his memo. "Such a process of rigorous internal U.S. government deliberations, leading to deeper political-military consultations with allies and other stakeholders, could powerfully build support at home and abroad for the President's eventual decisions about the way forward." But official US policy was established - and included within it was a simple claim that this had already been done.

Those who rely on television and newspapers to provide them with insight would no doubt experience some surprise that it actually hadn't - but while he could have simply been left out of any planning for Afghanistan, presumably Eikenberry has other sources of news.

As far as any updates regarding his two-month old memos, "Mr. Eikenberry declined through an embassy spokeswoman, Caitlin M. Hayden, to comment" on their publication in the Times.

She said by e-mail, "We stand by what we provided during the review process, which got us to the clear strategy we're now implementing, that the ambassador unequivocally supports."

That "clear strategy" argument, like everything else about Afghanistan, would be wonderful if it were true.