The President is emboldening critics who think he could use a shakeup in commanding generals to change the war plan. Obama losing Hill liberals on war

As President Barack Obama reaffirms his Afghanistan policy, he’s also emboldening critics in Congress who think he should use a shake-up in commanding generals to change the course of what they believe is an intractable war.

“I think he has to reassess the strategy,” Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) said Thursday. “I can’t believe for a minute that he’s not rethinking it.”


Massachusetts Democrat Jim McGovern fired off a letter Wednesday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), asking her to hold off on a war-funding bill until Congress can assess the full fallout of a Rolling Stone article that concluded — without correction from the White House — that the president and his commanders have been backing off plans to withdraw starting in July 2011.

The bottom line: The president and congressional critics, long on a collision course over the war in Afghanistan, are hurtling ever faster toward each other since the ouster of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, and doves on Capitol Hill are feeling a little tougher right now.

The anti-war coalition continues to be a thorn in the side of Democratic leaders, who are trying to find a way to move a war-funding bill over liberal objections and past a Republican Party unified in its opposition to using the must-pass $33 billion measure as a source of domestic spending.

War critics say Obama is missing a golden opportunity to use the McChrystal flap as an excuse to reshape his policy in Afghanistan. Instead, he’s reaffirming a policy that was shaped in large measure by McChrystal and using acclaimed Gen. David Petraeus to execute it, leaving himself little room to cast blame should things go wrong.

“He’s doubling-down,” said a senior Democratic congressional aide.

It’s not clear how the funding fight, or the larger battle over conduct of the Afghanistan war, will be resolved. But no one is backing down.

For 48 hours, Obama has been saying he’s not interested in a recalibration of his policy, even gently mocking those who hope for a quick exit next summer.

“We did not say, starting in July 2011, suddenly there will be no troops from the United States or allied countries in Afghanistan,” Obama said Thursday. “We didn’t say we’d be switching off the lights and closing the door behind us.”

But the firing of McChrystal — and the choice of Petraeus — has cleared the way for a fresh debate over the war. And while Petraeus should cruise to confirmation, it’s clear that many Democrats may love the general but are starting to hate the war.

“Until a full and complete explanation of these [McChrystal] comments and views are presented to Congress, we believe that a vote of the House of Representatives on the administration’s request for a supplemental appropriation for the war in Afghanistan would be inappropriate,” McGovern and 29 colleagues wrote to Pelosi.

Of the McChrystal-Petraeus trade, McGovern said, “Same menu, different waiter.”

Speaker Nancy Pelosi is trying to be the peacemaker between the anti-war critics in her caucus and the president.

“The president is the commander in chief, and we all stand by him in the decision that he made in terms of who would be in command in Afghanistan,” she said. “So we’ve trusted him before, we trust him now; it’s just a question of where people stand on our involvement in Afghanistan.”

Petraeus, who was on Capitol Hill Thursday, will be back in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday for a hurriedly planned confirmation hearing. The last time he met with the senators, he fainted during a round of questioning from Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who has been among the lawmakers critical of the conduct of the war.

Rep. Joe Sestak, a retired Navy admiral who is the Democratic nominee for Senate in Pennsylvania, said Obama needs to give Congress a better sense of how he measures success in Afghanistan, so that lawmakers can make informed decisions for their constituents.

“We haven’t gotten those metrics,” he said. “The strategy may be working. We just don’t have the metrics.”

Still, lawmakers hope there’s room to revisit the policy after Petraeus is confirmed.

“[Obama] would be imprudent not to have Gen. Petraeus report back to him based on what he finds on the ground,” Speier said.

Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), a conservative on the Armed Services Committee, said after a Tuesday meeting with Petraeus that he is confident a fresh pair of hands will reshape the policy.

“Anytime there is a change of command, there is an opportunity to fine-tune the approaches and strategies being used on the ground,” Inhofe said. “After meeting with him in my office this morning, I know that is his plan going forward. If anyone can take control of the effort in Afghanistan and see it through to a successful completion, Gen. Petraeus is that person.”

Obama and war critics do agree on one key aspect: They agree that the general is not as important as the policy.

“We’ll see how it works out,” said Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.), an outspoken opponent of the war. “It’s too early to say. But policy is more important than personnel. Clearly, someone has to be in charge over there.”

While most lawmakers are supportive of the Petraeus pick, some say no one — not even Ulysses S. Grant — could win the war.

“That McChrystal thing is just a symptom of what we won’t face up to, which is that it’s a totally failed policy,” Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) told POLITICO. “If we were on the verge of a great success, do you think we’d fire the general? So it was an absolute confirmation of the failed policy and yet the policy doesn’t change. They should have changed the policy and kept the general.

“Maybe that would have been better,” Paul said, before going on to say that it is the policymakers — not the military brass — who are to blame.