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Haley Barbour's Afghanistan Gamble
Haley Barbour's Afghanistan Gamble
RealClearPolitics - Haley Barbour's Afghanistan Gamble
By Scott Conroy
As his self-imposed end of April deadline for deciding whether to launch a likely presidential campaign looms this week, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour has already carved out a distinctive position on one of the most critical issues facing the country, a stance which will help define his candidacy at its outset.
Barbour's Southern charm and pedigree may be the superficial characteristic that will most distinguish him from the rest of the 2012 Republican field, but his calls to consider a possible troop reduction in Afghanistan may be the substantive issue that most sets him apart from the other top-tier candidates.
#toolbox #alert .title { text-transform: uppercase; font-weight: bold; font-size: 11px; }
In recent weeks, Barbour has been increasingly outspoken in his appeals to reconsider President Obama's military surge in Afghanistan, where about 100,000 U.S. troops are still deployed. Although a drawdown in U.S. forces is scheduled to begin in July, the American military mission that began after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, is not scheduled to end until 2014 -- and Barbour has bucked the tide in suggesting that this might be too long to wait.
"I think it is time for the administration to take a step back to look at what we're doing there," Barbour told the New Hampshire Union-Leader. "And if the mission is nation-building, the American people need to be told that in a very straightforward way. If the mission is still to win the war on terrorism, then we need to reconcile why we have 100,000 soldiers there and why we're spending $2 billion a week when I do not think it is at all commensurate."
Barbour's critical comments about the Afghanistan mission come at a time when the American public has become increasingly skeptical about the ongoing conflict there. A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll showed that 64 percent of Americans do not think the war in Afghanistan is worth fighting. And only 44 percent of those surveyed in a Pew poll released earlier this month said that the U.S. and NATO should keep troops in Afghanistan until the situation there is stabilized. Some 50 percent want to withdraw as soon as possible.
All the Republicans with aspirations of taking Obama's job have criticized the administration's foreign policy. But as the coming Afghan summer season looms with its traditional uptick in violence, Barbour has gotten out in front of the rest of the GOP field by questioning a mission that once had nearly unanimous public support. And it just might make smart political sense.
"There are a lot of conservatives who are not sure what our mission right now in Afghanistan is, and I think Haley is probably looking at the tea leaves and looking at the polls and knows that people are tired of this war," Republican strategist John Feehery said. "There's nobody else in the race who's going to want to make their campaign on it. There's not a John McCain or Rudy Giuliani figure, and I think the polls show that people are tired of this engagement in Afghanistan."
Feehery predicted that the other Republican presidential candidates would end up following Barbour's lead in questioning the continued U.S. involvement in Afghanistan. So far, however, the other major contenders have indicated that they still support the U.S. military mission there. Only former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson -- a recently declared candidate who remains an indisputable longshot -- has called for a more immediate troop withdrawal.
Perhaps Feehery is right that Barbour will eventually be considered a trend-setter. Right now, however, the Republican congressional leadership and most of the conservative foreign policy establishment continues to support a robust U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan.
After a two-day visit to the country, House Speaker John Boehner last week called on Obama to justify the planned July drawdowns that he suggested might "undermine the tenuous progress we've made thus far" and said that success in Afghanistan was "critically important to the safety and security of our country."
As far from a military dove or isolationist as Barbour may be, his Afghanistan position risks opening himself to attack from the foreign policy hardliners who are likely to enter the race. Several of them may question why Barbour doesn't want to finish the job in Afghanistan, as the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks approaches.
Writing in the Weekly Standard, neo-conservative intellectual Bill Kristol offered a preview of how the neo-con foreign policy intelligentsia might more thoroughly turn against Barbour when he recently accused the Mississippi governor of "pandering" on both his position on Afghanistan and his calls for defense spending cuts.
"I think that it'll be very hard for people who want to head for the exits in Afghanistan to make a persuasive case," Daniel Pletka, the vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, told RCP. "It's good when you're in a war to fight where you are and win where you are, rather than stopping halfway through, suggesting that this kind of looks good and let's go home right now."
Pletka said that Barbour was "playing a political game" on Afghanistan and noted that the U.S. mission in that country had become far more complicated than solely working to eliminate the remaining al-Qaida vestiges.
"Here's the real problem for someone like Haley Barbour," Pletka said. "Barack Obama doesn't want to be fighting these wars. I would challenge anyone on the right to be less enthusiastic about a strong America than Barack Obama. And yet, he has kept us in Iraq and surged troops in Afghanistan. The notion of attacking him from the far left or from the isolationist right is an argument that is going to be very hard to carry with the American people."
A CBS News poll conducted in February showed that Republicans were more supportive of the war in Afghanistan than the public at large, with 52 percent of Republicans backing the continued U.S. involvement and 38 percent calling for an end to the conflict.
Whichever direction the polls take on the issue in the coming months, Barbour confidantes say that his position on Afghanistan is not informed by political considerations but by common sense and conviction.
Barbour's recent quip that "anybody who says you can't save money at the Pentagon has never been to the Pentagon" was a reminder of how he might use his decades of experience within the upper echelons of national government and Republican politics to protect himself from any accusations that he is a Ron Paul-style extremist on military affairs. And a top Barbour aide told RCP that the Mississippi governor is likely to lay out a comprehensive outline of his foreign policy vision in the coming months -- one that is likely to feature Afghanistan as a centerpiece.
"I think his view would be of the importance of the long-term policy, as opposed to short-term political gain," the aide said. "By ultimately taking these policy positions, it will eventually be good politics because it goes to leadership. Some of the other camps appear to fear political repercussions by talking about it."
Scott Conroy is a national political reporter for RealClearPolitics. He can be reached at sconroy@realclearpolitics.com.
RealClearPolitics - Haley Barbour's Afghanistan Gamble
By Scott Conroy
As his self-imposed end of April deadline for deciding whether to launch a likely presidential campaign looms this week, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour has already carved out a distinctive position on one of the most critical issues facing the country, a stance which will help define his candidacy at its outset.
Barbour's Southern charm and pedigree may be the superficial characteristic that will most distinguish him from the rest of the 2012 Republican field, but his calls to consider a possible troop reduction in Afghanistan may be the substantive issue that most sets him apart from the other top-tier candidates.
#toolbox #alert .title { text-transform: uppercase; font-weight: bold; font-size: 11px; }
In recent weeks, Barbour has been increasingly outspoken in his appeals to reconsider President Obama's military surge in Afghanistan, where about 100,000 U.S. troops are still deployed. Although a drawdown in U.S. forces is scheduled to begin in July, the American military mission that began after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, is not scheduled to end until 2014 -- and Barbour has bucked the tide in suggesting that this might be too long to wait.
"I think it is time for the administration to take a step back to look at what we're doing there," Barbour told the New Hampshire Union-Leader. "And if the mission is nation-building, the American people need to be told that in a very straightforward way. If the mission is still to win the war on terrorism, then we need to reconcile why we have 100,000 soldiers there and why we're spending $2 billion a week when I do not think it is at all commensurate."
Barbour's critical comments about the Afghanistan mission come at a time when the American public has become increasingly skeptical about the ongoing conflict there. A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll showed that 64 percent of Americans do not think the war in Afghanistan is worth fighting. And only 44 percent of those surveyed in a Pew poll released earlier this month said that the U.S. and NATO should keep troops in Afghanistan until the situation there is stabilized. Some 50 percent want to withdraw as soon as possible.
All the Republicans with aspirations of taking Obama's job have criticized the administration's foreign policy. But as the coming Afghan summer season looms with its traditional uptick in violence, Barbour has gotten out in front of the rest of the GOP field by questioning a mission that once had nearly unanimous public support. And it just might make smart political sense.
"There are a lot of conservatives who are not sure what our mission right now in Afghanistan is, and I think Haley is probably looking at the tea leaves and looking at the polls and knows that people are tired of this war," Republican strategist John Feehery said. "There's nobody else in the race who's going to want to make their campaign on it. There's not a John McCain or Rudy Giuliani figure, and I think the polls show that people are tired of this engagement in Afghanistan."
Feehery predicted that the other Republican presidential candidates would end up following Barbour's lead in questioning the continued U.S. involvement in Afghanistan. So far, however, the other major contenders have indicated that they still support the U.S. military mission there. Only former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson -- a recently declared candidate who remains an indisputable longshot -- has called for a more immediate troop withdrawal.
Perhaps Feehery is right that Barbour will eventually be considered a trend-setter. Right now, however, the Republican congressional leadership and most of the conservative foreign policy establishment continues to support a robust U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan.
After a two-day visit to the country, House Speaker John Boehner last week called on Obama to justify the planned July drawdowns that he suggested might "undermine the tenuous progress we've made thus far" and said that success in Afghanistan was "critically important to the safety and security of our country."
As far from a military dove or isolationist as Barbour may be, his Afghanistan position risks opening himself to attack from the foreign policy hardliners who are likely to enter the race. Several of them may question why Barbour doesn't want to finish the job in Afghanistan, as the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks approaches.
Writing in the Weekly Standard, neo-conservative intellectual Bill Kristol offered a preview of how the neo-con foreign policy intelligentsia might more thoroughly turn against Barbour when he recently accused the Mississippi governor of "pandering" on both his position on Afghanistan and his calls for defense spending cuts.
"I think that it'll be very hard for people who want to head for the exits in Afghanistan to make a persuasive case," Daniel Pletka, the vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, told RCP. "It's good when you're in a war to fight where you are and win where you are, rather than stopping halfway through, suggesting that this kind of looks good and let's go home right now."
Pletka said that Barbour was "playing a political game" on Afghanistan and noted that the U.S. mission in that country had become far more complicated than solely working to eliminate the remaining al-Qaida vestiges.
"Here's the real problem for someone like Haley Barbour," Pletka said. "Barack Obama doesn't want to be fighting these wars. I would challenge anyone on the right to be less enthusiastic about a strong America than Barack Obama. And yet, he has kept us in Iraq and surged troops in Afghanistan. The notion of attacking him from the far left or from the isolationist right is an argument that is going to be very hard to carry with the American people."
A CBS News poll conducted in February showed that Republicans were more supportive of the war in Afghanistan than the public at large, with 52 percent of Republicans backing the continued U.S. involvement and 38 percent calling for an end to the conflict.
Whichever direction the polls take on the issue in the coming months, Barbour confidantes say that his position on Afghanistan is not informed by political considerations but by common sense and conviction.
Barbour's recent quip that "anybody who says you can't save money at the Pentagon has never been to the Pentagon" was a reminder of how he might use his decades of experience within the upper echelons of national government and Republican politics to protect himself from any accusations that he is a Ron Paul-style extremist on military affairs. And a top Barbour aide told RCP that the Mississippi governor is likely to lay out a comprehensive outline of his foreign policy vision in the coming months -- one that is likely to feature Afghanistan as a centerpiece.
"I think his view would be of the importance of the long-term policy, as opposed to short-term political gain," the aide said. "By ultimately taking these policy positions, it will eventually be good politics because it goes to leadership. Some of the other camps appear to fear political repercussions by talking about it."
Scott Conroy is a national political reporter for RealClearPolitics. He can be reached at sconroy@realclearpolitics.com.