Leverage, leaks, and Christmas cards

Spencer Ackerman reported yesterday, based on an anonymous National Security Council staffer, that Obama "demanded an exit strategy for the war." Today he's retracted the entire story. I'm sympathetic -- anonymously-sourced stories are always risky (I've done them; I know) -- and I give him credit for the honest mea culpa. The Washington Post wouldn't have been so public about it.

So it's still not clear what impact, if any, Amb. Karl Eikenberry's memos had on Obama's thinking. The Financial Times is probably right that Eikenberry and Gen. Stanley McChrystal won't be exchanging Christmas cards this year.

Beyond that, I think Evan nailed it yesterday when he wrote about the impact (or lack thereof) of Eikenberry's leaked cables on the U.S.-Karzai relationship. But just to drive home the point, here's the New Yorker's Amy Davidson:

Eikenberry's advice has made certain people mad... as if Eikenberry were throwing a wrench in an otherwise sensibly operating machine. But the complaints about Karzai--many also strongly worded--have been heard for months, and haven't really been answered. In a piece this morning on the leverage we have with Karzai, Helene Cooper writes that there's a phrase missing from Obama's injunctions to Karzai: "an 'or else.'"

Cooper's whole story is worth a read, but if you're pressed for time, here's a short version: The U.S. has very little leverage over Hamid Karzai.

Defense secretary Robert Gates, meanwhile, just wants all the leakers to shut up.

Two other Afghanistan items that caught my eye this morning. One is a Daily Telegraph interview with Afghan warlord Rashid Dostum, who warns that a U.S. military surge would strengthen the Taliban.

If I may digress into semantics for a moment: It drives me crazy when reporters refer to Dostum as "controversial." (The Telegraph is hardly the only culprit.) This is a man who flattens his own soldiers with tanks and left thousands of prisoners to rot in sealed cargo containers. There's nothing controversial about him. He's a mass murderer.

Arguing from the other side is David Kilcullen, the Australian counterinsurgency guru and adviser to Gen. David Petraeus, who thinks Obama needs to go big or go home:

"It feels to me that all these options are dangerously close to the middle ground and we have to consider whether the middle ground is a good place to be. The middle ground is a good place on domestic issues, but not on strategy. You either commit to D-Day and invade the continent or you get Suez. Half-measures end up with Suez. Do it or not do it."

I'm skeptical of Kilcullen's argument that 25,000 troops won't get the job done -- but 40,000 will. Classical counterinsurgency doctrine calls for a half-million troops to secure Afghanistan (a figure which includes Afghan troops). That number isn't set in stone, of course, but it suggests that an extra 40,000 -- bringing the total U.S. presence to about 108,000 -- would fall far short of what's needed. (Remember, McChrystal's strategy review said that he would prefer 80,000.)

But for political and logistical reasons 40,000 seems to be the upper limit; the White House isn't considering a larger request. Some folks on a foreign affairs listserv I follow think Kilcullen is "throwing a bone" to McChrystal; he's offering his support for the 40,000 option -- even if he doesn't really believe it will work -- because that's the best the general will get.

Kilcullen also touches on the question of leverage, and argues that Obama only has two ways to influence the Karzai government.

The White House line at present is that leaving is not an option. But Kilcullen said there was a vicious cycle that began with government corruption, creating the space for the Taliban to expand. There were two ways of getting leverage: one, of having enough troops in the country, and the other threatening to leave, as the US had done in Iraq.

If nothing else, Kilcullen just gave us a new metaphor to play with. Afghanistan isn't Iraq or Vietnam. It's Suez!