New York Times Spurs Discussion of McChrystal's Advisory Role
The New York Times published an interesting article last week detailing President Obama’s interactions with General McChrystal, the senior commander in Afghanistan. The article unleashed a multitude of commentaries on policy in Afghanistan.
Michael O’Hanlon, Brookings Institution, said in the Times article:
I don’t think I can defend him for being out of touch with his commander. . . He has other people who advise him. But there’s no one else with the feel on the ground that McChrystal has.
Dr. Bernard Finel, ASP, defended the President:
He meets with Gates and Mullen regularly. If I understand correctly there are a whole slew of people in DC who are part of McChrystal’s daily VTCs. Is there is problem with information flow? Or is this just another cudgel to beat conformity out of the entire system, to make national strategic decisions be responsive to tactical and operation considerations rather than the reverse? . . .
Ultimately, the notion that Obama has to have weekly VTCs with McChrystal is about perpetuating the personality cult of Petraeus by suggesting that anything he did must be replicated forever into the future.
Michael Innes adds in Foreign Policy magazine:
He’s [McChrystal] the mission commander, which is not a leisurely paced job, and doesn’t — shouldn’t — leave all that much time for getting down into the weeds. Which suggests that neither should Obama.
The implied criticism over the last couple of days has been that senior leaders should be tightly wired into ground truths — into maintaining fine-grained situational awareness of conditions in Afghanistan. That’s ridiculous.
It will be interesting to see where the debate goes from here.
