Owning the War, Then Selling It
It’s been suggested recently that the period since August has afforded President Obama the opportunity to come to terms with, internalize, and indeed begin to “own” the war in Afghanistan. In response to such observations, Peter Feaver has an excellent post over at Foreign Policy in which he points out that, regardless of whether or not the president has been willing to acknowledge it, he effectively took ownership of the war when he announced the conclusions of the original “Af-Pak” strategy review in March, outlining his new approach to the conflict.
Nevertheless, one test of whether Obama has in fact assumed the mantle of a wartime president will be in how he communicates his new strategy in the coming weeks, and how he treats the conflict rhetorically in the months ahead — either as a necessary war that needs to be fought to victory, or as a taxing mission that needs to be managed and quickly brought to a close. But as Gary Schmitt noted yesterday, the president’s recent remarks in China — in which he indicated that the new strategy will “put us on a path towards ending the war,” while citing his hopes of providing his successor a “clean slate” — are not encouraging.
As American support for the war continues to slip, it’s important to remember that this president has a unique capacity to shape public opinion. It would be a shame if, in the case of Afghanistan, he proved unwilling to do so.
Tim Sullivan is a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
