Today’s headline in the Washington Post tells us that our Ambassador in Kabul, Karl W. Eikenberry, opposes the sending of more U.S. and allied troops to Afghanistan, putting him at odds with the commanding general in that war, General Stanley McChrystal. Eikenberry happens to be a general, too—3-star instead of 4-star, but who’s counting?
The point is that this sort of public disagreement—arguably worse than “dithering” but likely to contribute to it—was bound to happen thanks to the way in which the decision structure over the Afghanistan/Pakistan portfolio was peopled in the first place: Too many Chiefs, not enough Indians. I wrote about this in my blog, The Newest Dealer, on February 9, and warned about the consequences. Since no one reads my blog—true enough, I don’t make it particularly easy to read it—I thought I’d quote a bit from what I wrote a little more than nine months ago. As you’ll see, I predicted a train wreck if the lines of authority over this policy area were not sorted out carefully and clearly. Oh, it’s so much fun to be able to say, “See, I told you so!” I just wish it were possible these days to predict good outcomes as often as bad ones.
In Sunday’s Washington Post (Feb. 8, 2009), front page on the right above the fold–in other words, the Post‘s Sunday lead–there appeared an article by Karen DeYoung entitled “Obama’s NSC Will Get New Power.” You can read what General Jim Jones has in store, evidently with the President’s approval, for yourself. What you can’t read in the Washington Post is about where these ideas came from. They came, in the main, from a two-year Congressionally funded commission called the Project on National Security Reform (PNSR). . . .
We’ll see how this new NSC design works out. . . but one thing is already clear: The transition to a stronger, more authoritative NSC is not likely to be a smooth one. The system in transition has already scored one doozy of a boner.
Jones apparently offered General Tony Zinni the post of U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, replacing Ambassador Crocker who is leaving real soon. Possibly seeing this as a power grab, Secretary Hillary scotched the notion, apparently arguing that it wasn’t a good idea to have military guys in both Baghdad and Kabul (General Karl Eikenberry, a 3-star, is headed there). So Chris Hill got that job instead–Chris Hill of the Six-Power Talks negotiations. . . .
Anyway, this was pretty embarrassing, obviously. Jones then reportedly apologized to Zinni for the mix-up and asked him if he’d wanted to be our man in Riyadh instead. Zinni, again reportedly (heck, I certainly wasn’t there), general to general, Marine to Marine, told Jones where he could shove that job. Boy, isn’t gossip fun, especially when it has that strong, musky odor of verisimilitude about it?
You can see why Hillary Clinton felt as she did, assuming she did and this was not just an innocent start-of-administration communications mix-up. The Arab-Israeli portfolio has been rented out to George Mitchell, the Afghan-Pak portfolio to Richard Holbrooke. Vice-President Biden has staked a claim to policy on Russia and NATO. What does she get to do? Stare down Hugo Chávez?
But maybe she’s lucky. Look what these folks have drummed up for Afghanistan alone. You’ve got a 4-star in Washington at Centcom, General Petreaus, with overall authority on the security side. You’ve got another 4-star in the field there, Gen. McKiernan. You’ve got a 3-star soon in the Embassy, Gen. Eikenberry. You’ve got Richard Holbrooke as special representative of the President. You’ve got the lurking Joseph Biden, who has taken a special interest in Afghanistan for some time, and one of his longtime aides, Tony Blinken, in a hot seat with a joystick at the NSC. Someone down there is the Assistant Secretary of State for Central Asia, too, presently Richard Boucher but probably not for long. Secretary Gates? He counts also. And so the question: Who the hell is in charge?! Beats me. Hillary is wise to stay out of the way until this gets sorted out…..if it ever does get sorted out.