Iraq Deadline Helped Elect Obama; On Afghanistan, It Could Hurt His Chances for Re-Election - Capital Journal - WSJ

By Peter Brown

Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, is a former White House correspondent with two decades of experience covering Washington government and politics. Click here for Mr. Brown’s full bio.

The idea of a time limit for ending a war worked well for President Barack Obama when he ran for president the first time, but by adopting that strategy for Afghanistan, he may be betting his chances for success the second time.

By essentially pledging that American troops will be out of Afghanistan by the end of his current term, the president is throwing a bone to his core supporters, who for the most part are uncomfortable with an increased U.S. military effort there in what is now an eight-year-old war.

Let’s put aside the debate on the wisdom of the deadline policy, and look at the politics: Mr. Obama’s deadline pledge creates a benchmark against which his actions will be judged, for better or for worse.

In other words, the withdrawal timetable he and his aides outlined in December 2009 will be used to judge his actions regardless of what happens on the ground in Afghanistan. By taking such a firm stand, he makes himself politically vulnerable should events cause him to decide troops have to stay longer, or that the U.S. goals there have to go unmet in order to keep his original deadline.

Of course, the president may well be able to end the U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan by then and accomplish his goal of ridding the country of al Qaeda and Taliban forces who otherwise might use it as a safe haven to plot terrorist actions against the U.S.

But if things don’t go the way the president expects, his line in the sand could get kicked in his face in the give-and-take, to put it nicely, that will characterize the 2012 campaign when he is expected to seek a second term.

Coming Home in 18 Months

In his nationally televised speech Tuesday night from West Point, Mr. Obama explained why he was sending an additional 30,000 U.S. combat troops to Afghanistan. He said those troops would begin coming home in just 18 months, in the summer of 2011. Earlier in the day, CNN reported it had been told by senior Obama administration officials that their goal is to have “most U.S. service members” out of Afghanistan within three years.

Although his promise to begin pulling out troops in 18 months may soothe the worries of some in his own party about a military buildup now, the 2012 presidential election will be held in two years and 11 months and voter reaction then is what matters most to his political future.

Mr. Obama’s speech and his troop decision are unlikely to solve his political problem, however, since public opinion is split on the issue. He is trying to finesse the sizable gap between those who want the U.S. to get out of Afghanistan and those who wanted him to send the larger number of new troops that the Pentagon requested.

The political problem for the president is more complicated than other big issues filling his plate. On Afghanistan, liberals/Democrats who are usually with him on almost all issues are skeptical of the U.S. military involvement there. Conservatives/Republicans, who on issues like health care and the stimulus are almost unanimously against the president, are strongly in favor of a military buildup in Afghanistan.

For example, a Quinnipiac University national poll last month found that when voters were asked if they thought the U.S. was “doing the right thing by fighting the war in Afghanistan now,” 48% answered yes, 41% said no. But the split along partisan lines was dramatic. While 68% of Republicans and 51% of independents agreed it was the right thing, only 31% of Democrats felt that way.

A More Important War

When Mr. Obama ran in 2008, he made setting a firm date for the exit of U.S. combat troops from Iraq his prime foreign policy promise. At the time, he said the war in Afghanistan was more important and one that deserved a larger American commitment.

President George W. Bush and Sen. John McCain, the Republican presidential nominee against Mr. Obama last year, said Mr. Obama’s plan for a hard deadline for leaving Iraq was bad policy because the enemy would just wait until after the deadline to make their move. But Mr. Obama’s election was at least, in part, due to American voters’ exhaustion with Iraq.

Last spring, Mr. Obama approved sending another 22,000 U.S. combat troops to Afghanistan, less than the Pentagon wanted. In his speech Tuesday, he gave the generals three-quarts of the increase they wanted this time.

The analogy with the American involvement in Vietnam during the 1960s and early ’70s is on everyone’s mind at the White House, and Mr. Obama took time to explain why he did not think the situations are analogous.

But clearly, the president’s best and brightest want to avoid the same kind of open-ended commitment that President Lyndon Johnson made when he was willing to send as many troops as it took to keep South Vietnam from falling to North Vietnam.

While setting a deadline for withdrawal may allow Mr. Obama to avoid repeating the mistakes that led LBJ not to seek a second full term in 1968, it also creates a potential problem for Mr. Obama in 2012.

Write to Peter Brown at peter.brown@quinnipiac.edu.