What It Might Look Like if the Bottom Drops Out Posted by Patrick Barry

Helene Cooper observes that President Obama's reliance on GOP support for the war in Afghanistan could put him in a precarious spot should they withdraw that support. But what would that look like?  I'm not sure that the danger is, as Lindsey Graham says, that some on the right will "do to Obama the same thing the left did to Bush with Iraq." Yes, George Will, Andrew Bacevich, and now Chuck Hagel have, to varying degrees, criticized U.S. policy toward Afghanistan.  But judging by the state of Republican discourse these days, it seems unlikely that these paleoconservatives will carry the right's narrative on Afghanistan. 

What's far more likely is that hawkish conservatives in congress end up assailing the administration, not for doing too much, but for not doing enough. Suppose Obama approves a troop increase of somewhere between 7,000 and 14,000 (the low-end of what has so far been discussed by members of McChrystal's civilian advisory team)  And suppose a year from now Afghanistan is in the same shape it is now, or worse. Its hard to imagine John McCain, John Boehner or anyone else in the conservative leadership doing a 180 and suddenly opposing the war.   Instead, conservatives will likely do many liberals did on Iraq in 2004, and argue that the war effort is suffering due to insufficient resources\mismanagement\failure of leadership.

Consider also the political incentives for Republicans to take a pro-war position on Afghanistan.  Why, amidst increasing calls for withdraw from the left, and the absence of progress on the battlefield, would opportunistic conservatives refrain from accusing Democrats of being weak on national security? Whatever you think about the actual threat of terrorism from Afghanistan (and Pakistan), invoking that threat is still a pretty useful political tool. Any perceived schism between Obama and the military leadership on the strategy for Afghanistan would also play well with the right.  No, it becomes pretty hard to imagine conservatives joining with the anti-war types on this one.  

Now, I could see this playing out in a variety of ways.  One possibility is that a year from now, the Obama administration, still committed to Afghanistan, but lacking progressive support, is pulled deeper into the conflict by pro-war Republicans. On the other hand, if the situation hasn't improved at all, a new coalition, comprised of progressives and paleoconservatives could give Obama the cover he needs to re-position his policy toward disengagement.  Spencer suggests a third possibility, which is that the administration resists both calls for increased escalation and outright withdrawal, with negative consequences to their domestic agenda (and I think, their foreign policy agenda as well).  And finally, we shouldn't discount the chance that the administration's strategy could show signs of success, which would give them latitude with both the left and the right.

Because everything in Afghanistan remain so fluid, it's tough to forecast what the political debate will look like in one year's time.  But it probably won't be pretty.

Comments

[Russ Wellen]

we shouldn't discount the chance that the administration's strategy could show signs of success, which would give them latitude with both the left and the right

What Obama needs is some of Bush's spinmeisters to convince the public that the first quiet spell is a sign we've stablilized the region, like Iraq. In any event, Obama doesn't need Afghanistan to pull the rug out from under his administration. He's already doing that by whittling down health-care reform to a stick figure of a bill.

[Gary Farber]

Are Chuck Hagel and Andrew Bacevich really "paleoconservatives"? Hagel has always struck me as simply a plain "conservative," without modifier, and as one of the saner ones, at that. I tend to think of Patrick Buchanan as the template for the -- oxymoron alert! -- modern "paleoconservative," and Hagel doesn't strike me as working the same mode.

Bacevich even less, although I have even less sense of his overall politics, as opposed to simply his views on use of the military, which isn't a very good single datapoint from which to construct a model of where anyone lies on a multiplex, or even linear, political spectrum.

I'd actually lean more towards calling Will simply one of the older generation of conservatives, rather than a "paleoconservative," for that matter. I've always taken "paleoconservative" to be a matter of hitting a certain number of opinion points that Will isn't a great fit to, either. Again, I'd point to Buchanan, and note that his and Will's forms of conservatism are really quite distinguishable, as are Hagel's and Buchanan's.

What with Buchanan being more or less what I'd also call some variant of "neo-proto-fascist."

But, of course, reasonable people will differ about their categorizations.

"Hawkish conservatives" is a much clearer descriptive of a functionally-defined category.

Boehner is more of an idiot-conservative, though not quite as far gone as, say, Michelle Bachman. Which falls into the category of the soft bigotry of low expectations.

[Gary Farber]

One opinion on "paleoconservative."

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