As painful as it is to consider the consequences of Johnson's decisions, he was, for all his faults, no monster. And even the finest, ethical leaders often find the pressures of politics powerfully encroaching on their best policy judgments. (For example, in order to win, Franklin Roosevelt ran publicly on a peace ticket in 1940, though he privately believed American interests required us to get into World War II.)
Today President Barack Obama is on the cusp of a fateful policy decision. He has argued consistently that the war in Afghanistan is necessary to deny al-Qaida a base of terrorist operations and to stop the Taliban insurrection from destabilizing nuclear Pakistan. But serious doubts are being raised by many policy experts and an emerging majority of the American and British publics as to whether we have a strategy and the materiel to succeed. Even the optimists believe that a successful counterinsurgency in Afghanistan (and needed as much in Pakistan) will require several years of sustained commitment, with substantially more men and materiel and a shrewder strategy (probably requiring modern nation building of a traditional tribal society).
To have a reasonable chance at success, President Obama will have to sustain the effort for years, which will require him to be at least as determined and stubborn on behalf of this war as former President George W. Bush was in fighting the Iraq war -- whatever one thought of Bush's policy wisdom. It may be a lonely struggle at times for the president because his strongest supporters (the Democratic Party, particularly its progressive/liberal wing) are not by philosophy or recent history natural supporters of military action; their support will be based largely on party instincts. The war's natural supporters -- the hawkish right and center of the Republican Party -- inevitably will have at least their enthusiasm ameliorated by their party instincts.
Thus, President Obama has a hard decision to make. Because things are going worse than expected in Afghanistan, it will take longer and require more sacrifice of American blood and treasure to succeed (if we can succeed even then) than was believed to be the case last year. Moreover, political support for the president is likely to be uneven at best.
So in this already politically difficult summer of 2009, President Obama must bring a higher level of intellectual integrity and moral courage to his go/no-go war decision than Lyndon Johnson was capable of 45 years ago. Notwithstanding his prior and current commitment to prosecute the war in Afghanistan -- and notwithstanding the ambiguous political effect of his decision -- he owes it to both himself and the many young service members who soon may be shipping out to make a new, cold calculation of whether he believes that he has a reasonable chance of successfully leading us in this new stage of the war. I don't envy him his job at the moment.
Tony Blankley
Tony Blankley, a conservative author and commentator who served as press secretary to Newt Gingrich during the 1990s, when Republicans took control of Congress, died Sunday January 8, 2012. He was 63.
Blankley, who had been suffering from stomach cancer, died Saturday night at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, his wife, Lynda Davis, said Sunday.
In his long career as a political operative and pundit, his most visible role was as a spokesman for and adviser to Gingrich from 1990 to 1997. Gingrich became House Speaker when Republicans took control of the U.S. House of Representatives following the 1994 midterm elections.
©Creators Syndicate