Distilled, the Big Idea behind Bob Woodward’s new book, “Obama’s Wars,” was outlined over these pixelated pages on July 18, 2008, in “A War He Can Call His Own”:
Obama needs a “good” war. Electability in fin de siècle America hinges on projecting strength around the world—an American leader has to aspire to protect borders and people not his own. In other words, Obama needs a war he can call his own. In Afghanistan, Obama has found such a war.
By promising to broaden the scope of operations in Afghanistan, Obama has found a “good” war to make him look the part. By staking out Afghanistan as his preferred theater of war—and pledging an uptick in operations against the Taliban—Obama achieves two things: He can cleave to the Iraq policy that excited his base. While winding down one war, he can ratchet up another, thereby demonstrating his commander-in-chief credentials.
Okay, so Woodward has framed as dovish “the president’s decision to order a surge of 30,000 additional troops late last year — 10,000 fewer than what top military leaders had been strongly pushing — with a withdrawal date of July 2011.”
The bottom line is that the president pushed for enough of a commitment, in blood and treasure in Afghanistan, to make him the presidential pick of a blood-lusting public.
That commitment was slightly less than the one the military had in mind—“to keep the troop commitment more open-ended.”
Talk about triangulation—BHO was able to shed just enough blood to give the left a foot in the door, while pacifying the murderous neoconservatives (Repbulicans in all permutations).
Calibration: that was the genius of the cunning Obama.