Recent polling has found that a majority of Americans feel that the country is too politically divided. No, this does not mean that the American people feel that fifty states are too many, or that counties, cities, parishes, and boroughs should be dissolved across the board. Rather, the concern is that there is too much pettiness and politicking in contemporary U.S. politics. Though this polling occurred prior to President Obama’s Tuesday evening address from West Point, that speech and reactions to it certainly help to validate the concerns of those surveyed.

On matters pertaining to Afghanistan, conservatives seem to largely be supportive of President Obama while liberals are more critical. As reported elsewhere, this divide is clearly apparent in the responses to news of Obama’s intended surge from Karl Rove and Michael Moore. There should be no surprise, however, that this divide exists. Indeed, the pettiness of contemporary politics helped propel President Obama to Pennsylvania Avenue. In essence, the quandary facing the current administration is one of its own making.

As a candidate for the office he now holds, Barack Obama sharply criticized the war in Iraq as being one of choice rather than of necessity. Yet, despite his rhetoric supportive of the war in Afghanistan, his reasons for opposing Iraq also largely apply to the conflict he now wishes to escalate. Senator Obama argued that the surge strategy implemented in Iraq presented a military solution to a political problem. Conservatives countered that the lack of security a precipitous withdrawal could cause would not only further destabilize Iraq, but also reverse the progress made to that point in the conflict.

Fast forward to 2009. An election for the Afghan presidency fails to legitimately occur due to widespread fraud in the first round of balloting by supporters of the incumbent and the withdrawal thereafter of his principal opponents. Hamid Karzai remains in power, but with substantially less credibility. Simply put, Afghanistan has a political problem; an inept, corrupt central government is incapable of exercising control over its claimed territory. Afghanistan now faces problems not unlike those faced by Iraq before the surge.

An enemy insurgency continues to exist, and rival cultural groups in the country remain distrustful of one another due to past struggles and ongoing difficulties. For Obama, the solution was to cut and run when the country was Iraq. However, for Obama, the proper means of addressing these same problems in a different theatre is escalation. On this basis, it is no wonder that the current administration is facing skepticism among its base and core supporters. Senator Feingold, the prairie progressive and Democrat from Wisconsin remains firm in his opposition to escalating the war. Over the weekend, an editorial by Senator Paul Kirk, the successor to Ted Kennedy, advocated doing more with the personnel already deployed. In the U.S. House of Representatives, those clamoring for a war surtax have announced their opposition, while others seek a swift vote on the surge proposal. Further opposition has materialized among some House Republicans in the sunbelt, but that has been noticeably minimal.

Nonetheless, President Obama is probably in the right to implement a surge in Afghanistan. Assuming his approach largely follows that advocated by General McChrystal, the possibility exists for stability and security to come to Afghanistan. One section from the speech delivered Tuesday stands out for the explanation it offers to the desire of victory in Afghanistan:

Let me be clear: none of this will be easy. The struggle against violent extremism will not be finished quickly, and it extends well beyond Afghanistan and Pakistan. It will be an enduring test of our free society, and our leadership in the world. And unlike the great power conflicts and clear lines of division that defined the 20th century, our effort will involve disorderly regions and diffuse enemies.

So as a result, America will have to show our strength in the way that we end wars and prevent conflict. We will have to be nimble and precise in our use of military power. Where al Qaeda and its allies attempt to establish a foothold – whether in Somalia or Yemen or elsewhere – they must be confronted by growing pressure and strong partnerships.

 However, in the same speech, President Obama continued the sniping that has become commonplace in our politics. Amidst faux appeals at embracing the legacy of American security and the onward march of liberty among the world’s many nations, the speech provided bountiful fodder for critics on the left and the right. In describing the Taliban/Al-Qaeda threat to Afghanistan as a cancer, President Obama validates the contention of his predecessor that the fight against terrorism which, Obama has conceded, goes far beyond Afghanistan and Pakistan, is one in which defeat is not an option. On this basis alone, one ought to ask if the president knows better but simply does not care when he stands by his opposition to the war in Iraq.

Bringing Vietnam into the discussion hurt President Obama with those on the right. The forgotten second half of the the U.S. involvement in Vietnam saw marked progress in the war-progress reversed thereafter by a precipitous withdrawal from the fight. Vietnam exemplifies a conflict where more was left to be done with fewer personnel and resources. President Obama’s dismissal of the Vietnam War as a sort of unilateral endeavor overlooks the contribution of Koreans and Australians among others to the conflict. To put matters anachronistically, Obama forgot Poland. The broad-based popular insurgency alluded to in the West Point speech was largely defeated between 1968 and 1969, years when those clamoring for a hasty withdrawal from the war were loudest. In reality, the wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan have much more in common than President Obama is comfortable admitting.

To those on the left, Obama’s invocation of Franklin Roosevelt and steadfast criticism of the Iraq incursion and escalation defeats his own advocacy of the Afghan surge. World War II was waged against two militarist and racialist regimes which had declared war against the United States. The Taliban regime in Afghanistan, however, neither attacked the United States nor provoked directly war with other countries. It was Al-Qaeda that attacked the United States, not the government of Saddam Hussein nor that of Muhammad Omar. This sets both of President Bush’s wars apart from World War II, as neoconservatives were at the time reminded. President Obama agrees with Republicans who argue that Afghanistan under the Taliban movement was a state sponsor of terrorism, but so undeniably was Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

This state of affairs has also manifested itself in the ongoing health care reform debate. Curiously, those weary about the proposed Afghan surge for its cost have been substantially less worried about how much their statist health reforms will require. By President Obama’s own numbers, health care reform could cost as much as the two wars in Western Asia did from their start to his inauguration. Yet, the West Point remarks made reference to the economy and a populace already hurting financially. A tax increase is the last thing the American people need, whether it is to fund a necessary conflict in a faraway land, or an unnecessary usurpation of the private sector by the state.

Despite rhetoric to the contrary, health care reform for the Democrats in Congress has not been about cost, but rather power. Insistence on a government insurance “option” is indicative of such, as is the failure of Democratic reform efforts to establish a national marketplace for health insurance, wherein consumers are free to choose precisely the amount of coverage desired form a variety of companies, large and small. Such would both reduce prices and encourage the purchase of plans by the uninsured. Existing “health insurance exchange” proposals in Democratic legislation require new uniform coverage mandates for all plans almost certainly guaranteeing a rise in costs.

By embracing long-antiquated notions of state-centered medicine advocated by his party, President Obama abandoned the always dubious idea that his style of leadership represented a stark change from the past. Instead of embracing solutions offered by conservatives, the current administration has pursued a firmly partisan approach to governance. The Lyndon Johnson conundrum has set in.

Now, when President Obama may need Republicans the most, there is indication that he will lose his own party in the process. Petty politicking dashed Johnson’s prospects for reelection. He, like Barack Obama, ran as a peace candidate in a presidential election before subsequently escalating a conflict he inherited. It is not too late for President Obama. The possibility still exists for him to govern from the center, and consider the good and innovative ideas of all sides before reaching a compromise acceptable to those involved. However, the time for change is now, and it starts with health care reform.

Last 5 posts by James Kane

• In Defense of Michael Steele - July 9th, 2010
• McDonald and Kagan - July 2nd, 2010
• The Petraeus Dilemma. - June 23rd, 2010
• On Paul and Blumenthal - May 22nd, 2010
• Lessons from Arizona - May 12th, 2010