AC: "You can't hang
everything off having a viable Afghan government."
Friday, October 30, 2009
Length: 7:44
LARGE (89.6 MB)
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SMALL (9.5 MB)
John King hosts a panel discussion about the
upcoming decision on whether to go big in or get
out of Afghanistan. The panel is Michael, David
Gergen, and former Bushie Dan Senor who is now with
the Council on Foreign Relations (and also Campbell
Brown's husband, although they don't mention
that.)
JOHN KING:
President Obama met for 90 minutes today with the
Joint Chiefs of Staff. It was his seventh meeting so
far on Afghanistan on what comes next for U.S. troops
there -- at least one more meeting set for next week.
Meantime, the political situation in Afghanistan has
taken a turn for the worse. A source tells CNN the
talks between the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, and
his presidential opponent, Abdullah Abdullah, have
broken down. And Abdullah is threatening to boycott
that runoff election scheduled one week from now.
It took massive pressure from the United States to
get Karzai to agree to that runoff in the first
place. Karzai claimed victory in August but the vote
was widely seen as corrupt, leaving the White House
in the lurch as it faces a key decision on troop
levels.
Here's what the White House Chief of Staff, Rahm
Emanuel, told me recently on "STATE OF THE UNION."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "STATE OF THE UNION WITH JOHN
KING")
RAHM EMANUEL, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: The
question does not come how many troops you send, but
do you have a credible Afghan partner for this
process that can provide the security and the type of
services that the Afghan people need?
It would be reckless to make a decision on U.S. troop
level if, in fact, you haven't done a thorough
analysis of whether, in fact, there is an Afghan
partner ready to fill that space.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Let's dig deeper with our panel.
Joining me, CNN senior political analyst David
Gergen, and Michael Ware, and Dan Senor. He's with
the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of
"Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic
Miracle." He also advised the Bush administration on
foreign policy.
David, let's start with the dilemma here. If the
White House has said -- and you heard just Rahm
Emanuel -- we need to know who our partner is, if
these negotiations break down, and there is a boycott
of the runoff, what's that mean for the White House
and decision?
DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: It is
very bad news for the White House and for the NATO
alliance.
The whole effort here by the U.S. in Afghanistan has
been premised, as Rahm Emanuel said, upon having a
partnership with a credible government. If there's no
runoff election and Karzai remains in power based on
a fraudulent first election, with a brother, we have
now learned, a drug lord and on the CIA payroll, the
American public is going to turn hugely against this.
There will be a huge resistance to sending in more
troops at the very moment that the U.S. general on
the ground says he needs a lot more troops, at least
40,000.
So I think this is a cruel dilemma for the president.
It's been a bad week on foreign policy. The Iranian
story has been grim. Other things have not -- Hillary
Clinton ran into a lot of resistance in Pakistan.
This is getting very tough on the foreign policy
front.
KING: And, Michael, based on your experience in
Afghanistan -- already, some people were saying the
administration was too linking the military decisions
to the political situation. What does this do?
MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I mean, the
bottom line is, wars do not wait for elections. And
President Obama, as commander in chief, is currently
waging war. And if he wants to pin his decision on
whether to send more troops or not on the results of
an Afghan election which is going to be shaky at
best, which is never going to deliver you Rahm
Emanuel's, you know, credible partner -- I mean, I
can't remember when there was a credible partner in
Afghanistan -- then, you know, it smacks of political
game-playing and time-wasting, to me, rather than
actual effective strategic decision-making.
You can't hang everything off having a viable Afghan
government. And whether it's going to be Karzai,
whether it's going to be his opponent, Abdullah
Abdullah, or whether it's going to be a government of
national unity, it doesn't really matter, in the
broad scheme of the U.S. mission, as long as the
Afghan people buy it.
And, essentially, you are going to be trading one
bunch of Afghan crooks and warlords for another. So,
at the end of the day, you're never going to have a
squeaky-clean partner. Let's not hold our breath for
this, John.
KING: And so Dan, following on Michael there, this
will only complicate a debate we're already having
here in the United States, with some saying the
president should make his decision, Rahm Emanuel
saying we need to wait.
You know the former vice president Dick Cheney quite
well, having served in the Bush administration. I
want you to -- want to play you something that the
current vice president, Joe Biden, told our Ed Henry
today when Ed asked about the Cheney criticism.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ED HENRY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Dick Cheney is saying,
your predecessor in this office, is saying the
president is failing that test, because he says he's
dithering and that you and the president are dragging
your feet on this decision.
JOE BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I
like Dick Cheney personally. But I really don't care
what Dick Cheney thinks. And I'm not sure a lot of
Americans do. Look at the policy they left us. Look
at the policy of neglect they left us in Afghanistan.
Look at the policy we inherited in terms of their
foreign policy.
Look, I think the president is doing exactly what any
president should do. And by the way, the military
thinks that, too.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: So, Dan Senor, Joe Biden in the White House
saying, "Hey, this is smart deliberation." Vice
President Cheney says it's dithering.
DAN SENOR, FORMER SPOKESPERSON FOR COALITION
PROVISIONAL AUTHORITY: That's right. It's not just
Vice President Cheney. It's actually General Anthony
Zinni, retired General Zinni, who's no supporter of
the last administration, who was very supportive of
this administration.
I do think, John, that there is this consensus among
the senior officer corps and the joint staff that the
president should move forward. The reasons he's
coming up for delaying the decision don't seem
terribly credible.
When Rahm Emanuel said that we've got to wait on an
Afghan government, keep in mind, on August 17, just,
you know, seven, eight, ten weeks ago, President
Obama in a speech before the VFW said this was a war
of necessity. At the time, that was three days before
the Afghan election, when we knew -- the NSC knew
that the election would be full of corruption.
If this election on November 7, there will also be
more corruption. To Michael's point, no matter what
the outcome of this election, whether or not Abdullah
Abdullah participates, there will be fraud. And if he
doesn't participate, it will be a nonevent. It's not
going to have a meaningful impact. And I don't think
it's something upon which to hang whether or not we
should make a troop decision.
KING: So, David, everybody here has been very sober
about this. And we already know the most recent CNN
poll shows a majority of Americans oppose sending
more troops. How much of a consideration should
public opinion be for the president right now?
GERGEN: Well, I'm very sympathetic to Michael's point
of view about that you've got to fight a war, and
you've got to be either in or out, and you can't sort
of hinge on elections.
But John, we've learned in Vietnam, we learned in
Iraq, you have got to have the country behind you as
commander in chief when you put a lot of Americans in
harm's way. It's not irrelevant what public opinion
says. You have to pay attention to that if you want
to be able to sustain it.
The Congress won't provide the funds. They'll pull
the rug out from under you right in the middle of
this thing unless you get the country committed up
front.
So this makes it a lot harder if they don't have an
election. Yes, there will be fraud. But I'm just
telling you, you -- if John Kerry is -- it's not just
Rahm Emanuel. John Kerry, the chairman of the Senate
Foreign Relations committee and a very powerful
voice, has said you can't do it without some sort of
credible partner.
The whole -- McChrystal says you have to have a
credible partner. So you've got to get this resolved.
And it's extremely important to get this resolved in
the next few days.
SENOR: John, let me just say one thing. First of all,
David is right. You do need a credible partner. But
if you don't have security, nothing else matters. We
can have all the -- we can have all the credible
partners in the world. If we don't provide basic
security, we never have a shot an improvement in
governance, first of all. Second of all, since
President Obama's been president, he's only given two
major speeches on Afghanistan. Democrat and
Republican, going back 60 years, whenever our country
has been in a major conflict abroad, the president is
constantly informing the public, educating the public
on why this is important.
The president needs to take ownership of this,
assuming he goes forward with McChrystal's plan or a
fraction of it, and explain constantly to the
American public why this is important. It's going to
be a distraction from his domestic agenda, which I
why I think there's resistance to it. But there's no
way public opinion is going to move on this without a
constant education by the commander in chief.
KING: Dan Senor, Michael Ware, David Gergen--
GERGEN: I have to agree with that.
KING: Gentlemen, thank you all so much. It's a
weighty one for the president and not going to go
away any time soon. Thank you all so much.