"... it isn't leading of you do a multi-month review of Afghan strategy, decide what it is going to be, ask the general in charge how to implement it, and then respond by deciding to review strategy again for a few weeks."

Target! Cease fire.

Nothing more to see here, move along please.

Time is only beginning to reveal the contours of Obama's foreign and security policies. While the antagonistic views of his political adversaries may be overdone, even moreso are the worshipful explications by uncritical admirers (and not just the dopey, but people like Fareed Zakaria, too) of his brilliant, secret strategies. What it looks like is as Ricks says -- dither, or at least a lack of real knowledge, assessment, and conviction as to how to act. The talk of universal global interests (as in the U.N. speech) and great faith in the power of negotiations and his own personal appeal as a form of soft power suggests a naive attitude bound to bump up against the reality of global politics and transnational threats. I only think Ricks is overoptimistic about the move toward multilateralism on Iran -- I think a reasonable assessment of what, say, Russia is likely to do, or Sarkozy's skeptical (to say the least) reaction to Obama's posture is not heartening. The jury is very much out, but sooner or later Obama will have to make a decision that will count.

ought to be doing - though the quote you give states (correctly) that all the options are unpalatable. I respect you too much, Mr. Ricks, to believe that you engage in the kind of mindless chatter that many "journalists" consider their job.

The comparison to Bush43 implies some equivalence. But consider: Bush refused to take action in the face of warnings about Al queada; Rice refused to meet with Richard Clark prior to 9/11; their focus was missile defense. These folks were wrong, and negligent to boot, casually disregarding the experts literally begging them to pay attention to the terrorist threat.

Obama is in the process of discovering that his campaign position about pulling out of Iraq and building up in Afghanistan may not be right. And...oh yes, there was that tiny little detail about Karzai stealing the election that has invalidated the entire US strategy for AfPak, and placed us in the position of having our troops die for an unelected thug.

Or...are you saying that Obama should hvae predicted that?t

Dither vs. Panic? Well, as the father-in-law of a repeatedly deployed Navy Seal officer I would just as soon Obama take his time and carefully think through the implications before he rushes off into new wars (Iran) or escalating existing wars (Afghanistan).

The blow back of a pre-emptive war against Iran needs to be fully assessed before and not after Israel or we attack that country. Regarding Afghanistan, Obama is becoming more cautious as he learns that the ‘professionals’ have few answers other than more of the same dressed up as a ‘new and improved’ strategy. That’s o.k. for laundry detergent but not war.

It's a fair criticism of President Obama that he's not much for bullet-biting. On the other hand, he's also someone with no real background in foreign policy or national security affairs trying to deal with the awful mess he owes to his predecessor's incompetence. A great deal is being asked of a new President right now, and if he sometimes seems as if he's having a hard time with the burden he's carrying that's no more than anyone should have expected.

Incidentally, there is some level of disconnect between commentary like Ricks's here and that of other prominent journalists writing about Obama and his national security team. David Broder, for instance, waxed almost lyrical in the Post last Sunday about the Obama team's experience, savvy and internal harmony. I take commentary like that with a grain of salt, or two; a lot of Washington journalists only report what they get told, which is another way of saying they can be spun. If no one is discontented, or willing to say so to a reporter or columnist, pictures of a team that is altogether "on the same page" will appear in print.

That isn't quite the same as a foreign policy team that's really meeting the challenges before it, and I wonder whether Obama's people put rather too much effort into making sure that everyone is happy with one another. Still, one must also consider that critics of an administration's apparent indecisiveness are prone to be especially irritated by its failure to decide in favor of the policy options they favor themselves. I don't know if it is fair to suspect Ricks of this with respect to Afghanistan; he's made it clear that he thinks the world will end unless America stays in Iraq forever, but I'm not sure whether he thinks the world will end unless America follows Gen. McChrystal's advice.

What, precisely, is this obvious thing that should be done in Afghanistan? More troops made more sense prior to the Afghan election, though it was far from a slam-dunk. Now, things are different. The issues remain dire, and the stakes high, but the govt. we support there is the equivalent of Iran's. Any body have a clue what to do?

Here's a thought: Obama is being "let down" by events. He needs a Tonkin Gulf incident, or a Pleiku, or the sinking of a destroyer in the North Atlantic, or a Pearl Harbor, to clarify American resolve. Without one of those, it is unclear what we should do because neither course of action is acceptable (withdrawing, long-term commitment).

The country gets moving, sadly, and presidents are forced to lead, when emotion over-rides analysis. Just sayin'.

Difficult to compare the Bush foreign policy team with Obama's ... considering that Bush didn't have one.

Ideological shamans, yes. Wishful thinkers, true believers, those who would subject reality to precept: yes. But the worst bunch of foreign policy butchers in decades, perhaps in the nation's history.

This 'on one hand..., on the other...' crap is the death rattle of serious journalism. Truth matters. Insightful analysis is desirable. Balancing meaning with bullshit is a cop-out.

I think what we're learning about Obama is that when he discovers something new about a situation, he takes his time and thinks about it deeply before he decides what to do. In most instances, this is the right thing to do.

Sticking with his pre-election pledge to send more troops to Afghanistan, when the situation is deteriorating and the election was fraudulent, would not be the wise course.

I don't know what Obama will do in the end, but he seems to have good judgment about issues.

But, it seems obvious that the US should start to quickly move troops out of Iraq. If the US isn't engaged in patrolling the streets, what is our mission there, now? And, in this case, he does seem to engaging in unnecessary dithering.

"I think Obama may be having his own 9/11 moment"

Can I be the first to say this was a horrible analogy? Fine, I get the idea of adjusting to events that weren't anticipated in the campaign. But you could just as easily have dubbed it a Lehman Brothers moment, or an Afghan elections moment, or an Iranian elections moment. In other words, there are plenty of analogies that capture unforeseen events, requiring adjustment, that don't equate a massive attack that killed 3,000 Americans, plunging the entire country to panic, and leaving the commander-in-chief not wholly in control of his own administration. Plus, the other examples listed suggest that Obama may actually be getting a lot of experience with adjusting to unforeseen events.

Maybe he should suspend his campaign? That surefire wouldn't "dithering" would it?

You might also want to reexamine your assumptions when you assert that Iraq is somehow a "broken promise." The alternative, I suppose, would be to stick to the campaign timetable, no matter what, and despite pledges to listen to the commanders there, too. Wouldn't that also be adjusting? Maybe it's dithering, too.

When you bring in Chandrasekaran, who uses a bit of conventional wisdom on the health care fight that has also been mostly wrong, we finally see that much this talk is an aggregate of nebulous Obama criticisms that have about as much grounding as Bush's gut instincts.

I hate to sound like Charles Krauthammer, but Obama's saintly aura can't be tainted by trudging into the mud of actual decision-making. Obama temporizes and obfuscates: on the Gaza War, on healthcare, on Afghanistan, on Iraq. It is how he operates. Poolitically he may be OK for a while, but there will be a time when he has to make a decision. Crunch-time is coming.

(Personally, I am looking at the Afghanistan escalation above all, if he does it, he is Bush 2.5/LBJ, if not, or he *de-escalates*, that would be revolutionary!)

But the longer this goes on, the more it looks like a serious rethink than mere dithering. I have a hard time believing that if the ultimate decision was not seriously up for grabs, that Obama would see any upside in hesitating this long before reaffirming his commitment to the policy. A major policy reversal never looks terribly resolute; hence not like 'leadership' -- especially in the midst of the process that leads to it. But ultimately, it would be daft to suggest that never allowing the veneer of 'leadership' to falter for a moment is more important than choosing the the right policy for the country. If Obama reverses himself on Afghanistan (though he'll argue he hasn't changed ends -- only means), the backlash that will accompany that will make the current criticism for failing to project steadfastness look like gentle schoolyard teasing. If he's willing to consider enduring that political coal-raking for the sake of the right policy, then you can bet he's willing to accept some questioning of his projection of 'leadership' while making the decision. Ultimately, making the correct decision in the face of political pressure is the salient point on which leadership must be applied -- not maintaining a projection of 'leadership' throughout a process of unwisely sticking to an imprudent policy. It would seem that if this goes the diretion it appears to -- an attenuated Afghan mission -- Obama is making the bet that it is his leadership with respect to policy -- rather than the appearance of 'leadership' -- on Afghanistan on which he'll be judged by history, and more importantly by most voters when the time comes that a referendum on his performance is put to the people. I'm not sure I'd bet against him.

A land war, not merely in Asia, but precisely in the Graveyard of Empires; a war which after the sham election must be one of occupation rather than of counterinsurgency; a war to be waged by an insolvent Uncle Sam who still hasn’t gotten the keys to its treasury back from the banksters.

Who will benefit from this war other than our friends in military-security procurement?

Biden may not be right about much, but perhaps this adventure should be scaled back to a few dashing special ops of the type that so thrilled Rumsfeld.

"On Iran, I think, he has done pretty well-trends are certainly pointing toward a multilateral containment effort."

Where in the hell do you get that from? There's absolutely nothing that has happened to suggest that statement is true in any way. It is not in the interests of the autocracies governing Iran, China and Russia to comply with what we want - so by containment I guess you mean the condoning of nuclear proliferation amongst 'rogue' nations while Obama climbs yet another stage to intone 'well, you see, that's just not right - did these people not read my books?'.

And as far as Obama and Afghanistan are concerned you reporters completely missed the story here: OBama embraced the war as part of a political calculation to get elected and now he wants it to go away and he wants McChrystal to tell him how to make it go away but McChrystal is not telling him what he wants to hear and so he's stuck with a war he needed by didn't want - simple as that.

Yup.

Obama got the anti-war vote by criticizing BushCo’s Iraq operation, but avoided galvanizing opposition from the security profiteers by promising them a new and better war which would assure the continuation of their lucrative privileges at the procurement ATM.

The need for pundits and cheerleaders to continually bring up the Bush administration as an excuse for Obama’s foreign policy naiveté is unsettling. Yes, “W” left many things (Iraq, Afghanistan and North Korea lead the list) in a bad way, but there is a new and equally incompetent leader in the White House who also has the bad habit of finger-pointing. President Obama needs to realize that he is in charge now, he should stop blaming Bush and, where possible, fix the mistakes of his predecessor.

Clearly, it is necessary to bring up the previous administration to remind (or educate) on how we got to where we are, but to accuse Bush of being in a panic is just another way to name call. There is ample evidence for poor policy and loathsome decisions, but none of “panic.”

Saying Obama merely dithers is just another way to excuse what clearly seems to be a lack of insight, knowledge, understanding and decisiveness. We cannot afford four (or eight) more years of bungling. When the US is faced with such gross incompetence people need to leave their ideology behind, and forget who it is they root for, and speak plainly. Obama is not leading, he does seem to know what to do, he is blinded by preconceived notions and his naiveté resembles fantasy.

The statement “On Iran, I think, he has done pretty well-trends are certainly pointing toward a multilateral containment effort,” is patently absurd. Ask Sarkozy, Putin, Netanyahu, or anyone, other than Ahmadinejad, if trends are pointing toward anything other than Iran achieving its nuclear ambitions.

Don’t choose dithering, expect competence.

Then why did his first NSC meeting discuss it? Why did his administration ask if Iraq, and not China, was involved in 9/11 on that day?

Thanks for posting your thoughts on Obama's foreign policies to date, I agree with you on many points, but you are treating Bush-43 with kid gloves if all you can say is they panicked.

Mr. Ricks writes another sour grapes piece about President Bush and excuses and accepts 'dithering' from Obama which is like a Roman applauding Nero's 'fiddling' while Rome burned.

How long does a thought process have to go on before it turns into a dither? Didn't Obama just get McChrystal's report last week? Are you saying he should have jumped as soon as it was delivered? This is a major decision, and he's got a big national security team meeting going on today to take advice on the options. Things seem to be moving with all deliberate speed. What's the big hurry?

McChrystal's command is Afghanistan, and his recommendations concern what, in his view, is needed in Afghanistan. But Obama's job is to integrate Afghanistan policy with a comprehensive national security strategy, and requests for resources and national commitments in Afghanistan have to be measured against other needs and priorities. You're the military guy, not me, but I would think it is fairly routine that commanders don't give each and every officer under their watch all the things they ask for, as soon as they ask for them. And they don't always rubber stamp the request and turn it around as soon as it arrives in their office.

Taking all of a week to make a major national security decision following this kind of assessment doesn't strike me as even close to dithering territory, and by labeling it as such you can contribute to an unhealthy atmosphere of haste, panic and political pressure. We're not talking about a situation in which columns of enemy tanks are assembled at some mountain pass and hours are of the essence. It's the Taliban, for pete's sake. Let's encourage the administration to get this right.

A very wise man once said that all leadership is just a kind of psychosis. All leaders have their own personalities, quirks, and blind spots. All leaders make mistakes. All leaders are human. However there is a difference between Mother Theresa and Adolf Hitler.

The same thing holds true with 43 and 44. Ricks is right to pinpoint a weakness in Obama's style regarding Afghanistan, but I would much rather have a ditherer rather than a cowboy making decisions on foreign policy. Almost all foreign policy questions can be dealt with on a slow motion basis. In my mind, there is absolutely nothing wrong with delaying on the status of Afghanistan while the president wrestles with health care.

On the contrary, by focusing on one issue at a time, there are better chances of making better decisions about both policies. Ricks is correct in his assessment of the Hobson's Choice nature of Afghanistan, and it will certainly be a test that Obama could fail on.

The one bright spot is that Obama appears to be reality based rather than ideology based in his decisionmaking processes. This alone is a welcome change.

Thomas,
Here's my main point. Let's pretend that I, Douglas Hardee, am
Commander-in-Chief of the US military. I call you in for a briefing on
Afghanistan based on your reputation as a renowned author and military
expert. I begin by saying to you, "Thomas, as a military historian,
you know that when a commander finds himself in a "shit storm" with no
easy answers, a reluctant public and reticent allies, as I do, you
need the best possible council. Hell, right now, all of America needs
the best possible information we can get. What's your take on the
situation on in Afghanistan, Thomas?" Well, If you make bashing Bush
part of your briefing, I know right away you're blowing smoke up my
skirt. When you're in a foxhole Thomas, you don't waste complaining
about the SOB that got us into it, you find ways to effectively fight
our way out of the situation. If you were briefing me "not to dither"
in that blog, and you pull the old Bush-Bashing routine, I would
assume, as President, that you had an axe to grind, and I would assume
it would only be a matter of time before you turned on
me.
As I said, it's not that Bush doesn't need a retroactive butt kicking,
it's just it doesn't belong in the same blog as a "tough love" note to
Obama. It comes off as ass-kissing to the WaPo Dinner party set.
Thomas, I'll make it simple for you you; A little more Keegan &
Morrison, a little less Olberman & Mathews.
All the best,
Semper Fi

Obama was a noted ditherer in Illinois voting "present" or not at all on many occasions, particularly if it was the least bit controversial. Another noted ditherer when it came to defending the USA was President Clinton:
1993
January: A Pakistani terrorist opened fire outside CIA headquarters, killing two agents and wounding three.
February: World Trade Center bombed, killing six and injuring more than 1,000.
1995
January: Operation Bojinka, Osama bin Laden's plan to blow up 12 airliners over the Pacific Ocean, discovered.
November: Five Americans killed in attack on a U.S. Army office in Saudi Arabia.
1996
June: Truck bomb at Khobar Towers kills 19 American servicemen and injures 240.
June: Terrorist opens fire at top of Empire State Building, killing one.
1997
February: Palestinian opens fire at top of Empire State Building, killing one and wounding more than a dozen.
November: Terrorists murder four American oil company employees in Pakistan.
1998
January: U.S. Embassy in Peru bombed.
August: Simultaneous bomb attacks on U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania killed more than 300 people and injured over 5,000.
1999
October: Egypt Air flight 990 crashed off the coast of Massachusetts, killing 100 Americans among the more than 200 on board; the pilot yelled "Allahu Akbar!" as he steered the airplane into the ocean.
2000
October: A suicide boat exploded next to the U.S.S. Cole, killing 17 American sailors and injuring 39.

Can one assume that Mr.Ricks is a great admirer of the 'dithering policy' of President Clinton which led to:
2001
September: Terrorists with four hijacked airplanes kill around 3,000 Americans in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.
December: Richard Reid, the "shoe bomber," tries to blow up a transatlantic flight, but is stopped by passengers.
The September 11 attack was a propaganda triumph for al Qaeda, celebrated by a dismaying number of Muslims around the world. Everyone expected that it would draw more Muslims to bin Laden's cause and that more such attacks would follow. In fact, though, what happened was quite different: the pace of successful jihadist attacks against the United States slowed, decelerated further after the onset of the Iraq war, and has now dwindled to essentially zero.