2010 will see a discomforting revelation of America's true place in the world. Gradually, the veil of illusion will be stripped away as to the ends we set, the means we have for reaching them, and the probity of our impaired leadership. The infirmed state of the nation's body politic will then become apparent.
Our futile project in Afghanistan, along with our dubious ventures elsewhere in the Greater Middle East, will provide the main instruction. For it is there that the immediate, tangible costs will register and it is there that credibility is eroding for all to see. First, there is the gross distortion in the Obama administration's declaration of needs and goals. Its policies are driven by the relentless quest for the Holy Grail -- absolute security, especially from al-Qaida and its ilk. The absurd notion that failure to succeed in this quixotic enterprise will gravely endanger the United States and 'buckle' the world order cannot be justified by logical analysis. Yet we plunge ahead on a fool's errand. With would-be terrorists -- however inept -- scattered around the planet, we keep pushing the Sisyphusian boulder up the slopes of the Hindu Kush.
Second, we do not have the power to impose our will on other parties. Whether those parties are foe or friend, they show growing resistance to doing things under American pressure that they otherwise don't want to do. Robert Gates' embarrassing trip to the region two weeks ago should make that obvious. Mr. Maliki in Baghdad told Gates that he had more important things to tend to than being badgered for the umpteenth time to follow self-interested American prescriptions for what Washington thinks ails Iraq. Mr. Karzai in Kabul called Gates' bluff in telling him to his face, in public, that the Afghan army will not be ready for 25 years to take on the responsibility for national security -- whether we threaten to leave or not. After all, you don't abandon the Holy Grail because the native help is a bit laggard. Meanwhile, in Islamabad, the Pakistani military, backed by most of the country's political class, bluntly and bitterly told a battery of top echelon American envoys that they reject the American demand to conduct all-out was against the Taliban, they reject drone attacks in Quetta and they reject giving the CIA/Blackwater crowd free run of their own country. Their message: "We want to make one thing perfectly clear -- back off!"
Our one obedient servant in Pakistan, President Asif Ali Zadari, is on the verge of being forced to resign along with his entire government in humiliating circumstances following a decree by the Pakistani Supreme Court which he tried and failed to corrupt.
Third, Barack Obama has done a disservice to the country by dragging out an endless review of tactics when all the big questions of need and purpose had been decided eight months earlier -- with no public input. The one person among his senior policy-makers who did not share in the fanciful thinking, Ambassador General Karl Eikenberry, was studiously kept out of the prime time White House discourse. That is why Obama blew his stack when the long Eikenberry memo leaked. This irresponsible mode of policy-making broke every rule in the book: sound decision making demands that diverse viewpoints be heard, that defining the problem and goal-setting be dealt with with a candor that opens to critical scrutiny the underlying premises; that prudent steps be taken to avoid group-think. Taken together, these lapses meant that the American public was presented with a flawed case for war that concealed more than it revealed. Obama's disingenuous rhetoric at West Point and Oslo never addressed frankly how circles were to be squared and why we had to try. Setting dates for exit strategies and mapping off-ramps before your escalated campaign has even begun is senseless. Having your senior officials contradict you within days dissolves Obama's authority while shredding his credibility everywhere.
As we mire ourselves in Afghanistan, and as hostility toward the United States mounts throughout the region, we will have thrust in our face the rude truth that we are burning down the house (or houses) in an attempt to destroy some mice -- to quote Uri Avnery. Mice whose troublesome relatives are scattered throughout the town. Waging war in a country where al-Qaeda does not exist contradicts directly the case for what is proclaimed to be a necessary and 'just' war.
Americans observe these contradictions like a cat looking at you turning on and off the light switch with attention flitting from you to the light. Then it just closes its eyes and goes back to sleep. That is what they are doing, with the encouragement of the Washington pundits who kibitz on the fine points of counter insurgency in places they know nothing about. As for the press, they perform their virtuoso act of slaloming around all the big questions that could make a difference. Others, abroad, have made the connection, exacerbating our troubles. When it dawns on the American public that they have been duped -- again -- the repercussions could alter profoundly what we can and can't do in the world. For worse and for better. If they do not wake up, then the further degeneration of our incoherent political system will proceed apace.