President Obama Goes Back to Hawaii for Vacation; American Troops Go Back Into Combat in Afghanistan and Iraq. And Now Syria, Too.

Last year in December, President Obama celebrated the end of our “combat mission” in Afghanistan.  It wasn’t true at the time, but ending our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan was one of the things his presidency was supposed to be about, so he used some slick wording and clever definitions to claim our combat mission was ending when it really wasn’t.  Now The Wall Street Journal reports that the U.S. is doing even more in Afghanistan:

“A U.S. Special Operations spokesman confirmed in an email that ‘additional U.S. special forces have been sent to augment our Train, Advise, and Assist mission in Helmand.’  The spokesman declined to comment on the number of teams.

The role of the A-Teams in Helmand is to advise Afghan troops as part of the NATO support mission, but they often accompany Afghan forces during military operations and fight when they are threatened.  They are also authorized to call in airstrikes.”

In other words, U.S. special forces units are fighting in Afghanistan.  If our “combat mission” was ever over, it’s back on now.

Similarly, remember how President Obama said the U.S. would have “no boots on the ground” in Iraq (later changed “no combat boots on the ground”)?  Also, no longer true.  This is from ForeignPolicy.com two-and-a-weeks ago:

“For the first time since U.S. airstrikes against the Islamic State began some 16 months ago, the U.S. is openly sending in ground combat troops.  In an acknowledgement that the fight against the militants has yet to significantly dent the group’s power, Defense Secretary Ash Carter told the House Armed Services Committee Tuesday that the Pentagon would send a ‘specialized expeditionary targeting force’ of elite troops to Iraq with freedom to operate inside Syria as well.”

And then yesterday, confirmation that we have combat boots on the ground in Syria, too:

“The incremental intensification of the American war effort in Iraq and Syria took another step forward Thursday, when Defense Secretary Ash Carter confirmed that U.S. commandos are now active in northern Syria.  The troops have been meeting with Syrian Arab rebels with whom they hope to forge a partnership in the fight against the Islamic State.”

It’s not that I object to what we are doing in these cases; it’s that I object to what seems to be (i) the reactionary basis of our policy, i.e., they act, we react, and (ii) the lack of forthrightness on the part of the President.  President Obama keeps saying, we’re done fighting in Afghanistan, we won’t send troops to Iraq, etc., and then we do it.

Instead of saying we won’t do something, and then doing it in reaction to events, maybe we should establish a proactive policy.  How can we expect countries to join with us in doing something, when we previously said we wouldn’t do it, and it looks like we are constantly being forced into doing things we don’t want to do?

Similarly, how does it look, and what signals does it send about our commitment and whether we can be trusted to stick it out, when the President is the one always talking about getting out and ending operations, and it is his subordinates, like Ash Carter or a “special forces spokesman,” who disclose we are going in (or going back in)? 

I am definitely not suggesting the kind of mindless bluster that comes from a certain Republican presidential hopeful whose last name rhymes with “chump”.  Rather, a president needs to look like and demonstrate that he/she has a plan that will work and that will encourage other countries to trust us and work with us.  In other words, the kind of quiet forcefulness and commitment we saw when George H. W. Bush said, of Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, “This will not stand.”