By Dr Sharifullah Dorani*
The Afghanistan War (and the Iraq War) had ‘left our unity on national security issues in tatters, and created a highly polarised and partisan backdrop for’ their effort to fight terrorism.[1] President Obama (and Secretary of Defense Gates)
Introduction
On December 1, 2009, President Barack Obama announced a critical decision in the Global War on Terror (GWOT), later reframed by his administration as ‘Countering Violent Extremism’: the deployment of an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan, plus 3,000 enablers. This move, widely known as the ‘surge,’ followed an exhaustive three-month internal assessment called the ‘Af-Pak’ review. This review was not merely a tactical deliberation but a fundamental re-examination of the US presence, with approximately ten sessions delving into everything from strategic objectives to the very rationale for intervention.
Obama’s approach to this high-stakes decision was distinctive, employing a ‘multiple advocacy’ model. Unlike the more centralised style of his predecessor, President George W Bush, Obama encouraged all sides, including lower-rank officials, to voice contrasting and often conflicting viewpoints. He listened to these policy suggestions, engaged with probing and detailed questions, but ultimately centralised policymaking within the White House. The decision was his alone, influenced by his own counsel and close aides, and then communicated to his advisors.
Using the Foreign Policy Decision-Making Approach, I have dedicated several articles to examine how the surge decision was formed, identify the independent variables that influenced the policymaking process and the resulting strategy, and explain the mechanisms through which these variables exerted their influence, culminating in the final policy outcome. The structure of my analysis mirrors the decision-making process Obama followed.
This article details the (divided) public opinion on the Afghanistan War, enriched by the conflicting policy suggestions from the two main opposing factions. On one side stood the Head of US Central Command General David Petraeus or military camp, advocating for a full-scale counterinsurgency strategy (COIN) aimed at securing the population and building the Afghan state. On the other hand was the Vice-President Joe Biden camp, pushing for a lighter counterterrorism-plus strategy (CT-plus) focused on targeted operations and security training. Both camps marshalled extensive arguments and foundational assumptions to justify their recommendations. Crucially, these internal debates were amplified by a simmering public debate—Congress, think-tanks, and the press actively engaged, often aligning with one camp over the other, with both factions actively leaking information and lobbying outside actors to shape the policy atmosphere.
The Divided Public Opinion
In 2009, after President Barack Obama announced an end to the war of ‘choice’ and approved the deployment of 21,000 (17,000 + 4,000) US troops in February, little was written and talked about Iraq because now the ‘war of necessity’ took the centre stage. Obama found that his members of the War Cabinet, Congress, the press, the area experts, and the general public were divided on whether to approve General Stanley McChrystal’s request for 40,000, or four brigades with enablers, to conduct ‘classic counterinsurgency operations’.
The Petraeus camp ─ namely, Secretary of Defense Gates, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Michael Mullen, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the newly appointed US Commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, and, of course, the Head of US Central Command General David Petraeus ─ urged[2] Obama to honour McChrystal’s requests.
But the Biden group or camp ─ namely, National Security Advisor to the Vice-President Antony J. Blinken, Senior Advisor and Coordinator for Afghanistan-Pakistan Douglas E. Lute, Deputy National Security Advisor Thomas E. Donilon, and Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism John O. Brennan ─ advised Obama not to.
Incidentally, Obama had a small team of advisors within the White House who constituted his ‘inner circle’. The team included National Security Council Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, National Security Council Chief of Staff (until October 2, 2009) Denis Mark W. Lippert, Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications Benjamin Rhodes, Donilon, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, Senior Advisors to the President Peter Rouse, Bill Daley and David M. Axelrod, as well as White House Press Secretary Robert L. Gibbs. Generally speaking, most members of the inner circle, if not all, had similar views to those of Biden (as explained in my other article). Since Biden was Vice-President and had a wealth of experience in foreign policy, the group often let him speak for all those in the Af-Pak review.[3]
Like the Biden camp, the Democratic Party, generally speaking, opposed the escalation of US involvement in Afghanistan. The anti-war liberals, the grass roots of the Democratic Party, were against the Afghanistan War and asked Obama for a total withdrawal.[4] Though powerful Democrats ─ such as Senator Carl M. Levin from Michigan, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services, Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, John Kerry, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, and Representative Jim McGovern, Democrat of Massachusetts, ─ did not ask for US withdrawal, they publicly disagreed with McChrystal’s planned counterinsurgency strategy for similar reasons that the Biden camp argued. Their main concern was the financial ‘costs’ of the strategy at a time when the US had economic difficulties, warning Obama that relying on the Democrats alone would not be a guarantee to pass the financing for the expensive strategy.[5]
On the other hand, Obama was pressed by numerous Republican Senators, who still badly wanted a US ‘victory’ in Afghanistan, to approve the military requests for resources and troops. Some well-known Republican Senators ─ including John McCain, Lindsey Graham,Representative Eric Cantor, Republican Minority Whip, and (independent Democratic) Joseph I. Lieberman ─ not just supported the military camp, but repeatedly and publicly warned that, if Obama failed to send the 40,000, the US would fail.[6] Their media campaign was so aggressive that even Petraeus had to tell them to slow down.[7]
Lindsey Graham privately told Emanuel, who was worried that Congress might not fund the surge troops, that if Obama approved the surge they would make sure the administration won the Republican support to pass the financing for the decision.[8]
Chairman Kerry, on the other hand, tried to counterweigh against the heavyweight Republican Senators by equally writing opinion pieces in the press and giving opening statements at hearings he conducted at the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.[9] His media campaign made a fair share of the contribution to the public debate in favour of the Biden camp (and the President).
The Senate Committee on Foreign Relations played an important part in shaping the atmospheric environment for the decision to surge by inviting more than a dozen experts to join their hearings on Afghanistan. Stephen Biddle, John Nagl, Peter Bergen, Ryan C. Crocker, and to a lesser extent, Clare Lockhart, John Craddock, and Khaled Hosseini, supported Petraeus’s arguments, while Rory Stewart, Steve Coll, Milton Bearden, Maleeha Lodhi, and Marc Sageman found their arguments consistent with the Biden camp. (Their testimonies are covered in my other articles.)
It was not just experts who gave testimonies who found themselves on the two sides of the horizon, but also other outside actors. Their contributions through writing influential articles and textbooks further split public opinion. Those who found their views compatible with the military camp, some by coincidence and others by design, included Barbara Elias, Kim Baker, James Dobbins, Max Boot, William Kristol, Frederick W. Kagan, Erin M. Simpson, Clinton Douglas, Seth Jones, David Kilcullen, Michael Gerson, Mark Mayor, Fotini Christia, Michael Samples, and Lewis Sorley. (Again, they are covered in my other articles.)
Those who supported the Biden camp, intentionally or by coincidence, included George Will, Andrew J. Bacevich, journalist and expert Rory Stewart, Thomas H. Johnson, Steven Simon, Milton Bearden, David Ignatius, John Mueller, and Gordon M. Goldstein.
The arguments put forward by Biden and Petraeus were consistent with the arguments put forward by the abovementioned (foreign policy) experts, those who gave testimonies to the Senate and those who wrote influential articles in the press and other foreign policy journals. At times, it was difficult to distinguish whether a particular view was initiated by Petraeus or Michael Gerson, or by Biden or David Ignatius.
Due to the public and adversarial nature of the Af-Pak review and the controversial aspect of the Afghanistan War, both camps used outside actors to maximum effect to weaken each other’s policy suggestions in front of the President, thus contributing to the split in public opinion.
In many cases, however, it was clear that views of certain experts influenced the viewpoints of the policymakers. It was Kagan’s article[10] that convinced Gates that the US, like the Soviet Union, would not be seen by Afghans as an occupier since the counterinsurgency strategy was designed to protect Afghans but the Soviets were killing them.[11]
It was George Will’s article[12] that strengthened Biden’s conviction that the US was heading towards another Vietnam in Afghanistan. It was Gordon M. Goldstein’s book, Lessons in Disaster: McGeorge Bundy and the Path to War in Vietnam, which the President and most of the policymakers had read, that provoked the Biden camp to question every assumption made by the military, as Presidents John F Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson had failed to do in relation to the Vietnam War.[13] The outside actors, therefore, contributed a great deal to forming the public debate and consequently shaping the policy.
Like the policymakers, Congressional members, and experts, the American public were equally split on troop increase. A poll by ABC News/The Washington Post stated that 49 per cent did not approve additional of troops, while 47 per cent did.[14] The Afghanistan War (and the Iraq War), as admitted by Obama (and Gates), had ‘left our unity on national security issues in tatters, and created a highly polarized and partisan backdrop for’ their effort to fight terrorism.[15]
Conclusion
This article has shed some light on the public debate and the opposing beliefs/arguments that existed during the time President Barack Obama was making the decision to surge in Afghanistan in late-2009. The division existed among the policymakers, Congress, the area experts and the general American public.
This ‘highly polarized’ environment made it very difficult for Obama to make a decision, putting him in a real dilemma, since most of his advisors and the members of his Democratic Party (not to say ‘49 percent’ of the Americans) did not support the expansion of the Afghanistan War, but the military and the Republicans (and ‘47 percent’ of the public) were emphatic in their request to expand the war. If he increased troops, he was going to lose the support from the Democrats; if not, he was going to alienate Republicans and many independents. So his decision carried a significant political risk whichever way his decision weighed in.[16]
While some of my articles deal with how Obama responded to this divide in public opinion, others cover the arguments (or their viewpoints) the two camps and their supporters put forward to justify their beliefs (or belief systems), the arguments that formed the grounds for the split in public opinion.
References
Chandrasekaran, Rajiv. 2012. Little America: the war for Afghanistan. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Barker, Peter, ‘Obama to Weigh Buildup Option in Afghan War’, The New York Times, August 31, 2009.
Baker, Peter, ‘How Obama Came to Plan for ‘Surge’ in Afghanistan’, The New York Times, December 5, 2009.
Balz, Dan and Jon Cohen, ‘U.S. deeply split on troop increase for Afghanistan war’, The Washington Post, October 21, 2009.
Frederick, Kagan, ‘We’re Not the Soviets in Afghanistan; and 2009 isn’t 1979’, Weekly Standard, August 21, 2009, <http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/016/854qadbb.asp>.
Gates, Robert M., ‘A Balanced Strategy; Reprogramming the Pentagon for A New Age’, Foreign Affairs, January/February 2009, <http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/63717/robert-m-gates/a-balanced-strategy>.
Gates, Robert Michael. 2014. Duty: memoirs of a Secretary at war.
Graham, Lindsey, Joseph I. Lieberman and John McCain, ‘Only Decisive Force Can Prevail in Afghanistan’, The Wall Street Journal, September 13, 2009.
Kane, Paul, ‘Pelosi: Democrats facing voter ‘unrest’ over war spending, troop increase’, The Washington Post, November 24, 2009.
Kaplan, Fred, ‘The End of the Age of Petraeus; The Rise and Fall of Counterinsurgency, Foreign Affairs, January/February, 2013, <http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/138459/fred-kaplan/the-end-of-the-age-of-petraeus>.
Kerry, ‘Opening Statement’, ‘Chairman Kerry Welcomes President Obama’s New Strategy for Afghanistan-Pakistan’, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, March 27, 2009, <http://www.foreign.senate.gov/press/chair/release/chairman-kerry-welcomes-president-obamas-new-strategy-for-afghanistan-pakistan>.
Kerry, ‘Chairman Kerry opening statement at hearing on Strategy For Afghanistan, September 16, 2009, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, <http://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/KerryStatement090916p.pdf>.
Kerry, John, ‘Testing Afghanistan Assumptions; The Lesson of Vietnam is Don’t Commit without a Clear Strategy’, The Wall Street Journal, September 27, 2009.
Kerry, John F., ‘U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Chairman John F. Kerry Opening Statement for Hearing on Afghanistan’s Impact On Pakistan’, Hearing Before Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, October 1, 2009, <http://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/KerryStatement091001a.pdf>.
Kerry, ‘Excerpts From Senator John Kerry’s Speech on Afghanistan’, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, October 26, 2009, <http://www.foreign.senate.gov/press/chair/release/excerpts-from-senator-john-kerrys-speech-on-afghanistan>.
Kerry, ‘Chairman Kerry Opening Statement At Hearing With Secretary Clinton, Secretary Gates and Admiral Mullen’, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, December 3, 2009, <http://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/KerryStatement091203a1.pdf>.
Kerry, ‘Opening Statement’, ‘Chairman Kerry: Pakistan is the core of our challenge’, December 9, 2009, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, <http://www.foreign.senate.gov/press/chair/release/chairman-kerry-pakistan-is-the-core-of-our-challenge>.
Langer, Gary, ‘Exclusive: Obama’s Numbers Plummet on Afghanistan War Worries’, ABC News, 2009, October 21, 2009, <http://abcnews.go.com/PollingUnit/Politics/ afghanistan-abc-news-washington-post-poll/story?id=8872471>.
Mann, Jim. 2012. The Obamians: the struggle inside the White House to redefine American power. New York: Viking.
Obama, Barack. [2009]. Remarks by the President in Address to the Nation on the Way Forward in Afghanistan and Pakistan.[The White House]. <http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-address-nation-way-forward-afghanistan-and-pakistan>.
Obama, Barack. 2020. A Promised Land. Viking.
Singh, Robert. 2012. Barack Obama’s post-American foreign policy: the limits of engagement. London: Bloomsbury academic.
Tyson, Ann Scott. ‘Mullen: More Troops ‘Probably’ Needed’, The Washington Post, September 16, 2009.
Will, George. F. ‘Time to Get Out of Afghanistan’, The Washington Post, September 01, 2009.
Woodward, Bob. 2010. Obama’s wars. New York; Simon & Schuster.
[1] Obama, Barack. [2009]. Remarks by the President in Address to the Nation on the Way Forward in Afghanistan and Pakistan.[The White House]. <http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-address-nation-way-forward-afghanistan-and-pakistan>; Gates, Robert Michael. 2014. Duty: memoirs of a Secretary at war, p. 369.
[2] Obama, Barack. 2020. A Promised Land. Viking, pp. 432-34,
[3] Chandrasekaran, Rajiv. 2012. Little America: the war for Afghanistan. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, p. 118.
[4] Mann, Jim. 2012. The Obamians: the struggle inside the White House to redefine American power. New York: Viking, pp. xx, xix, pp. 14-17.
[5] Tyson, Ann Scott. ‘Mullen: More Troops ‘Probably’ Needed’, The Washington Post, September 16, 2009; Barker, Peter, ‘Obama to Weigh Buildup Option in Afghan War’, The New York Times, August 31, 2009; Kane, Paul, ‘Pelosi: Democrats facing voter ‘unrest’ over war spending, troop increase’, The Washington Post, November 24, 2009; Kerry, John, ‘Testing Afghanistan Assumptions; The Lesson of Vietnam is Don’t Commit without a Clear Strategy’, The Wall Street Journal, September 27, 2009; Obama, Barack. 2020. A Promised Land. Viking, pp. 432-34
[6] Graham, Lindsey, Joseph I. Lieberman and John McCain, ‘Only Decisive Force Can Prevail in Afghanistan’, The Wall Street Journal, September 13, 2009; Tyson, Ann Scott. ‘Mullen: More Troops ‘Probably’ Needed’, The Washington Post, September 16, 2009; Woodward, Bob. 2010. Obama’s wars. New York; Simon & Schuster, pp. 204-206; Baker, Peter, ‘How Obama Came to Plan for ‘Surge’ in Afghanistan’, The New York Times, December 5, 2009; Singh, Robert. 2012. Barack Obama’s post-American foreign policy: the limits of engagement. London: Bloomsbury academic, p. 74.
[7] Woodward, Bob. 2010. Obama’s wars. New York; Simon & Schuster, p. 206.
[8] Baker, Peter, ‘How Obama Came to Plan for ‘Surge’ in Afghanistan’, The New York Times, December 5, 2009,; Woodward, Bob. 2010. Obama’s wars. New York; Simon & Schuster, p. 298; Mann, Jim. 2012. The Obamians: the struggle inside the White House to redefine American power. New York: Viking, p. 135.
[9] Kerry, John F., ‘U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Chairman John F. Kerry Opening Statement for Hearing on Afghanistan’s Impact On Pakistan’, Hearing Before Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, October 1, 2009, <http://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/KerryStatement091001a.pdf>;
Kerry, ‘Opening Statement’, ‘Chairman Kerry Welcomes President Obama’s New Strategy for Afghanistan-Pakistan’, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, March 27, 2009, <http://www.foreign.senate.gov/press/chair/release/chairman-kerry-welcomes-president-obamas-new-strategy-for-afghanistan-pakistan>; Kerry, ‘Excerpts From Senator John Kerry’s Speech on Afghanistan’, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, October 26, 2009, <http://www.foreign.senate.gov/press/chair/release/excerpts-from-senator-john-kerrys-speech-on-afghanistan>; Kerry, ‘Chairman Kerry opening statement at hearing on Strategy For Afghanistan, September 16, 2009, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, <http://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/KerryStatement090916p.pdf>; Kerry, ‘Chairman Kerry Opening Statement At Hearing With Secretary Clinton, Secretary Gates and Admiral Mullen’, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, December 3, 2009, <http://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/KerryStatement091203a1.pdf>; Kerry, ‘Opening Statement’, ‘Chairman Kerry: Pakistan is the core of our challenge’, December 9, 2009, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, <http://www.foreign.senate.gov/press/chair/release/chairman-kerry-pakistan-is-the-core-of-our-challenge>
[10] Frederick, Kagan, ‘We’re Not the Soviets in Afghanistan; and 2009 isn’t 1979’, Weekly Standard, August 21, 2009, <http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/016/854qadbb.asp>.
[11] Gates, Robert M., ‘A Balanced Strategy; Reprogramming the Pentagon for A New Age’, Foreign Affairs, January/February 2009, <http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/63717/robert-m-gates/a-balanced-strategy>; Gates, Robert Michael. 2014. Duty: memoirs of a Secretary at war, p. 360; Kaplan, Fred, ‘The End of the Age of Petraeus; The Rise and Fall of Counterinsurgency, Foreign Affairs, January/February, 2013, <http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/138459/fred-kaplan/the-end-of-the-age-of-petraeus>.
[12] Will, George. F. ‘Time to Get Out of Afghanistan’, The Washington Post, September 01, 2009.
[13] Baker, Peter, ‘How Obama Came to Plan for ‘Surge’ in Afghanistan’, The New York Times, December 5, 2009; Mann, Jim. 2012. The Obamians: the struggle inside the White House to redefine American power. New York: Viking.
[14]Langer, Gary, ‘Exclusive: Obama’s Numbers Plummet on Afghanistan War Worries’, ABC News, 2009, October 21, 2009, <http://abcnews.go.com/PollingUnit/Politics/ afghanistan-abc-news-washington-post-poll/story?id=8872471>; Balz, Dan and Jon Cohen, ‘U.S. deeply split on troop increase for Afghanistan war’, The Washington Post, October 21, 2009.
[15] Obama, Barack. [2009]. Remarks by the President in Address to the Nation on the Way Forward in Afghanistan and Pakistan.[The White House]. <http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-address-nation-way-forward-afghanistan-and-pakistan>; Gates, Robert Michael. 2014. Duty: memoirs of a Secretary at war, p. 369.
[16] Langer, Gary, ‘Exclusive: Obama’s Numbers Plummet on Afghanistan War Worries’, ABC News, 2009, October 21, 2009, <http://abcnews.go.com/PollingUnit/Politics/ afghanistan-abc-news-washington-post-poll/story?id=8872471>; Balz, Dan and Jon Cohen, ‘U.S. deeply split on troop increase for Afghanistan war’, The Washington Post, October 21, 2009; Woodward, Bob. 2010. Obama’s wars. New York; Simon & Schuster, pp. 175, 311.
*Sharifullah has a PhD from Durham University in the UK on America’s Afghanistan War. He has authored several articles and two acclaimed books: The Lone Leopard, a novel set in Afghanistan, and America in Afghanistan, published by Bloomsbury Publishing. Sharifullah is the founder of CEPSAF and the South Asia and Middle Eastern Editor at CESRAN International.