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Stanley McChrystal, Obamas top commander in Afghanistan,has seized control of the war by never taking his eye off the

real enemy: The wimps in the White HouseBy Michael hastings

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WriterMichael Hastings hasreported rom Iraq and Aghanistan ortwo years. This is his frst story or RS.

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RUNAWAY GENERAL

Germanys president and sparked bothCanada and the Netherlands to announcethe withdrawal o their 4,500 troops.McChrystal is in Paris to keep the French,who have lost more than 40 soldiers in Aghanistan, rom going all wobbly onhim.

The dinner comes with the position,sir, says his chie o sta, Col. CharlieFlynn.

McChrystal turns sharply in his chair.Hey, Charlie, he asks, does this come

with the position?McChrystal gives him the middle

nger.The general stands and looks around

the suite that his traveling sta o 10 hasconverted into a ull-scale operations cen-ter. The tables are crowded with silverPanasonic Toughbooks, and blue cablescrisscross the hotels thick carpet, hookedup to satellite dishes to provide encry pt-ed phone and e-mail communications.Dressed in o-the-rack civilian casual blue tie, button-down shirt, dress slacks McChrystal is way out o his comortzone. Paris, as one o his advisers says, isthe most anti-McChrystal city you canimagine. The general hates ancy res-taurants, rejecting any place with can-dles on the tables as too Gucci. He pre-ers Bud Light Lime (his avorite beer) toBordeaux, Talladega Nights (his avor-ite movie) to Jean-Luc Godard. Besides,the public eye has never been a placewhere McChrystal elt comortable: Be-ore President Obama put him in chargeo the war in Aghanistan, he spent veyears running the Pentagons most secre-tive black ops.

Whats the update on the Kandaharbombing? McChrystal asks Flynn. Thecity has been rocked by two massive carbombs in the past day alone, calling intoquestion the generals assurances that hecan wrest it rom the Taliban.

troops to not only destroy the enemy, butto live among the civilian population andslowly rebuild, or build rom scratch, an-other nations government a processthat even its staunchest advocates admitrequires years, i not decades, to ac hieve.The theory essentially rebrands the mil-itary, expanding its authority (and itsunding) to encompass the diplomat-ic and political sides o warare: Thinkthe Green Berets as an armed PeaceCorps. In 2006, ater Gen. David Petra-eus beta-tested the theoryduring his surge in Iraq,it quickly gained a hardcore

ollowing o think-tankers,journalists, military ocersand civilian ocials. Nick-named COINdinistas ortheir cultish zeal, this in-fuential cadre believed thedoctrine would be the per-ect solution or Aghani-stan. All they needed wasa general with enough cha-risma and political savvy toimplement it.

As McChrystal leanedon Obama to ramp up thewar, he did it with the sameearlessness he used totrack down terrorists in Iraq: Figure outhow your enemy operates, be aster andmore ruthless than everybody else, thentake the uckers out. Ater arriving in

Aghanistan last June, the general con-ducted his own policy review, orderedup by Deense Secretary Robert Gates.The now-inamous report was leaked tothe press, and its conclusion was dire: I we didnt send another 40,000 troops swelling the number o U.S. orces inAghanistan by nearly hal we were indanger o mission ailure. The WhiteHouse was urious. McChrystal, they elt,was trying to bully Obama, opening himup to charges o being weak on nationalsecurity unless he did what the generalwanted. It was Obama versus the Penta-gon, and the Pentagon was determined tokick the presidents ass.

Last all, with his top general call-ing or more troops, Obama launched athree-month review to re-evaluate thestrategy in Aghanistan. I ound thattime painul, McChrystal tells me in oneo several lengthy interviews. I was sell-ing an unsellable position. For the gen-eral, it was a crash course in Beltway pol-itics a battle that pitted him againstexperienced Washington insiders likeVice President Biden, who argued that aprolonged counterinsurgency campaignin Aghanistan would plunge Americainto a military quagmire without weak-ening international terrorist networks.The entire COIN strategy is a raud per-petuated on the American people, saysDouglas Macgregor, a retired colonel and

oensive that began in February to re-take the southern town o Marja con-tinues to drag on, prompting McChrystalhimsel to reer to it as a bleeding ulcer.In June, Aghanistan ocially outpacedVietnam as the longest war in Americanhistory and Obama has quietly begunto back away rom the deadline he set orwithdrawing U.S. troops in July o nextyear. The president nds himsel stuckin something even more insane thana quagmire: a quagmire he knowingly

walked into, even though itsprecisely the kind o gigan-tic, mind-numbing, multi-

generational nation-build-ing project he explicitly saidhe didnt want.

Even those who supportMcChrystal and his strat-egy o counterinsurgen-cy know that whatever thegeneral manages to accom-plish in Aghanistan, itsgoing to look more like Viet-nam than Desert Storm.Its not going to look like awin, smell like a win or tastelike a win, says Maj. Gen.Bill Mayville, who servesas chie o operations or

McChrystal. This is going to end in anargument.

th e n i g h t a f t e r h i s

speech in Paris, McChrystaland his sta head to KittyOSheas, an Irish pub cater-ing to tourists, around the

corner rom the hotel. His wie, Annie,has joined him or a rare visit: Since theIraq War began in 2003, she has seen herhusband less than 30 days a year. Thoughit is his and Annies 33rd wedding anni-versary, McChrystal has invited his innercircle along or dinner and drinks at theleast Gucci place his sta could nd. Hiswie isnt surprised. He once took me toa Jack in the Box when I was dressed inormalwear, she says with a laugh.

The generals sta is a handpicked c ol-lection o killers, spies, geniuses, patriots,political operators and outright mani-acs. Theres a ormer head o British Spe-cial Forces, two Navy Seals, an AghanSpecial Forces commando, a lawyer, twoghter pilots and at least two dozen com-bat veterans and counterinsurgency ex-perts. They jokingly reer to themselvesas Team America, taking the name romtheSouth Park-esque sendup o militarycluelessness, and they pride themselveson their can-do attitude and their disdainor authority. Ater arriving in Kabul lastsummer, Team America set about chang-ing the culture o the International Se-curity Assistance Force, as the NATO-led mission is known. (U.S. soldiers hadtaken to deriding ISAF as short or I

Im up there, thats the problem, he says.Then, unable to help themselves, he andhis sta imagine the general dismissingthe vice president with a good one-liner.

Are you asking about Vice PresidentBiden? McChrystal says with a laugh.Whos that?

Biden? suggests a top adviser. Didyou say: Bite Me?

when barackobamaentered the Oval Oce,he immediately set outto deliver on his mostimportant campaign

promise on oreign policy: to reocusthe war in Aghanistan on what led usto invade in the rst place. I want theAmerican people to understand, he an-nounced in March 2009. We have a clearand ocused goal: to disrupt, dismantleand deeat Al Qaeda in Pakistan andAghanistan. He ordered another 21,000troops to Kabul, the largest increase sincethe war began in 2001. Taking the adviceo both the Pentagon and the Joint Chieso Sta, he also ired Gen. David Mc-Kiernan then the U.S. and NATO com-mander in Aghanistan and replacedhim with a man he didnt know and hadmet only briefy: Gen. Stanley McChrys-tal. It was the rst time a top general hadbeen relieved rom duty during wartimein more than 50 years, since Harry Tru-man red Gen. Douglas MacArthur at

the height o the Korean War.Even though he had voted or Obama,McChrystal and his new commander inchie ailed rom the outset to connect.The general irst encountered Obamaa week ater he took oice, when thepresident met with a dozen senior mili-tary ocials in a room at the Pentagonknown as the Tank. According to sourc-es amiliar with the meeting, McChrys-tal thought Obama looked uncomort-able and intimidated by the roomul omilitary brass. Their irst one-on-onemeeting took place in the Oval Oce ourmonths later, ater McChrystal got theAghanistan job, and it didnt go much better. It was a 10-minute photo op,says an adviser to McChrystal. Obamaclearly didnt know anything about him,who he was. Heres the guy whos goingto run his ucking war, but he didntseem very engaged. The Boss was prettydisappointed.

From the start, McChrystal was de-termined to place his personal stamp onAghanistan, to use it as a laboratory ora controversial military strategy knownas counterinsurgency. COIN, as the theo-ry is known, is the new gospel o the Pen-tagon brass, a doctrine that attempts tosquare the militarys preerence or high-tech violence with the demands o ght-ing protracted wars in ailed states. COINcalls or sending huge numbers o ground

ment would sap American power; AlQaeda has shited its base o operationsto Pakistan. Then, w ithout ever usingthe words victory or win, Obama an-nounced that he would send an addition-al 30,000 troops to Aghanistan, almostas many as McChrystal had requested.The president had thrown his weight,however hesitantly, behind the counter-insurgency crowd.

Today, as McChrystal gears up or anoensive in southern Aghanistan, theprospects or any kind o success lookbleak. In June, the death toll or U.S.troops passed 1,000, and the number oIEDs has doubled. Spending hundredso billions o dollars on the th-poorestcountry on earth has ailed to win overthe civilian population, whose attitudetoward U.S. troops ranges rom intense-ly wary to openly hostile. The biggest mil-itary operation o the year a erocious

the generals

team makesjokes about

the VP. biden?laughs a toP

aide. did yousay: bite me?

We have two KIAs, but that hasntbeen conrmed, Flynn says.

McChrystal takes a nal look aroundthe suite. At 55, he is gaunt and lean, notunlike an older version o Christian BaleinRescue Dawn. His slate-blue eyes havethe unsettling ability to drill down whenthey lock on you. I youve ucked up ordisappointed him, they can destroy yoursoul without the need or him to raisehis voice.

Id rather have my ass kicked by aroomul o people than go out to this din-ner, McChrystal says.

He pauses a beat.Unortunately, he adds, no one in

this room could do it.With that, hes out the door.Whos he going to dinner with? I ask

one o his aides.Some French minister, the aide tells

me. Its ucking gay.The next morning, McChrystal and his

team gather to prepare or a speech he isgiving at the cole Militaire, a Frenchmilitary academy. The general prideshimsel on being sharper and ballsi-er than anyone else, but his brashnesscomes with a price: Although McChrys-tal has been in charge o the war or onlya year, in that short time he has man-aged to piss o almost everyone with astake in the confict. Last all, during thequestion-and-answer session ollowing aspeech he gave in London, McChrystaldismissed the counterterrorism strate-gy being advocated by Vice President JoeBiden as shortsighted, saying it wouldlead to a state o Chaos-istan. The re-marks earned him a smackdown romthe president himsel, who summoned thegeneral to a terse private meeting aboardAir Force One. The message to McChrys-tal seemed clear: Shut the uck up, andkeep a lower profle.

Now, fipping through printout cardso his speech in Paris, McChrystal won-ders aloud what Biden question he mightget today, and how he should respond. Inever know whats going to pop out until

howd i get screwed into goingto this dinner? demands Gen. Stan-ley McChrystal. Its a Thursday nightin mid-April, and the commander oall U.S. and NATO orces in Aghani-

stan is sitting in a our-star suite at the Htel Westmin-ster in Paris. Hes in France to sell his new war strategy toour NATO allies to keep up the ction, in essence, thatwe actuallyhave allies. Since McChrystal took over a yearago, the Aghan war has become the exclusive propertyo the United States. Opposition to the war has alreadytoppled the Dutch government, orced the resignation o

leading critic o counterinsurgency whoattended West Point with McChrystal.The idea that we are going to spend atrillion dollars to reshape the culture othe Islamic world is utter nonsense.

In the end, however, McChrystal gotalmost exactly what he wanted. OnDecember 1st, in a speech at West Point,the president laid out all the reasonswhy ghting the war in Aghanistan isa bad idea: Its expensive; were in aneconomic crisis; a decade-long commit-

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Suck at Fighting or In Sandals and Flip-Flops.) McChrystal banned alcohol onbase, kicked out Burger King and othersymbols o American excess, expand-ed the morning brieng to include thou-sands o ocers and reashioned the com-mand center into a Situational AwarenessRoom, a ree-fowing inormation hubmodeled ater Mayor Mike Bloombergsoces in New York. He also set a manicpace or his sta, becoming legendaryor sleeping our hours a night, runningseven miles each morning, and eatingone meal a day. (In the month I spendaround the general, I witness him eat-ing only once.) Its a kind o superhumannarrative that has built up around him,a staple in almost every media prole, asi the ability to go without sleep and oodtranslates into the possibility o a mansingle-handedly winning the war.

By midnight at Kitty OSheas, mucho Team America is completely shitaced.Two ocers do an Irish jig mixed withsteps rom a traditional Aghan wed-ding dance, while McChrystals top ad-visers lock arms and sing a slurred song otheir own invention. Aghanistan! theybellow. Aghanistan! They call it theirAghanistan song.

McChrystal steps away rom the cir-cle, observing his team. All these men,he tells me. Id die or them. And theyddie or me.

The assembled men may look andsound like a bunch o combat veteransletting o steam, but in act this tight-knitgroup represents the most powerul orceshaping U.S. policy in Aghanistan. WhileMcChrystal and his men are in indisput-able command o all military aspects othe war, there is no equivalent position onthe diplomatic or political side. Instead,an assortment o administration play-ers compete over the Aghan portolio:U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, Spe-cial Representative to Aghanistan Rich-ard Holbrooke, National Security AdvisorJim Jones and Secretary o State HillaryClinton, not to mention 40 or so other co-alition ambassadors and a host o talkingheads who try to insert themselves intothe mess, rom John Kerry to John Mc-Cain. This diplomatic incoherence haseectively allowed McChrystals team tocall the shots and hampered eorts tobuild a stable and credible government inAghanistan. It jeopardizes the mission,says Stephen Biddle, a senior ellow at theCouncil on Foreign Relations who sup-

ports McChrystal. The military cannotby itsel create governance reorm.

Part o the problem is structural: TheDeense Department budget exceeds$600 billion a year, while the State De-partment receives only $50 billion. Butpart o the problem is personal: In pri-vate, Team McChrystal likes to talk shitabout many o Obamas top people on thediplomatic side. One aide calls Jim Jones,a retired our-star general and veterano the Cold War, a clown who remainsstuck in 1985. Politicians like McCainand Kerry, says another aide, turn up,have a meeting with Karzai, criticize himat the airport press conerence, then getback or the Sunday talk shows. Frankly,its not very helpul. Only Hillary Clintonreceives good reviews rom McChrystalsinner circle. Hillary had Stans back dur-ing the strategic review, says an adv iser.She said, I Stan wants it, g ive him whathe needs.

McChrystal reserves special skepti-cism or Holbrooke, the ocial in chargeo reintegrating the Taliban. The Bosssays hes like a wounded animal, says amember o the generals team. Holbrookekeeps hearing rumors that hes going toget red, so that makes him dangerous.

Hes a brilliant guy, but he just comes in,pulls on a lever, whatever he can grasponto. But this is COIN, and you cant justhave someone yanking on shit.

At one point on his trip to Paris, Mc-Chrystal checks his BlackBerry. Oh,not another e-mail rom Holbrooke, hegroans. I dont even want to open it. Heclicks on the message and reads the salu-tation out loud, then stus the BlackBerryback in his pocket, not bothering to con-ceal his annoyance.

Make sure you dont get any o thaton your leg, an aide jokes, reerring tothe e-mail.

b y far the most crucial and strained relationshipis between McChrystal andEikenberry, the U.S. ambas-sador. According to those close

to the two men, Eikenberry a retiredthree-star general who served in Aghan-istan in 2002 and 2005 cant stand thathis ormer subordinate is now calling theshots. Hes also urious that McChrystal,backed by NATOs allies, reused to putEikenberry in the pivotal role o vice-roy in Aghanistan, which would havemade him the diplomatic equivalent othe general. The job instead went to Brit-ish Ambassador Mark Sedwill a movethat eectively increased McChrystalsinfuence over diplomacy by shutting outa powerul rival. In reality, that position

needs to be lled by an American or it tohave weight, says a U.S. ocial amiliarwith the negotiations.

The relationship was urther strainedin January, when a classied cable thatEikenberry wrote was leaked to The NewYork Times. The cable was as scathing asit was prescient. The ambassador oereda brutal critique o McChrystals strate-gy, dismissed President Hamid Karzai asnot an adequate strategic partner, andcast doubt on whether the counterinsur-gency plan would be sucient to deal with Al Qaeda. We will become moredeeply engaged here with no way to ex-tricate ourselves, Eikenberry warned,short o allowing the country to descendagain into lawlessness and chaos.

McChrystal and his team were blind-sided by the cable. I like Karl, Iveknown him or years, but theyd neversaid anything like that to us beore, saysMcChrystal, who adds that he elt be-trayed by the leak. Heres one that cov-ers his fank or the history books. Now iwe ail, they can say, I told you so.

The most striking example o McChrys-tals usurpation o diplomatic policy is hishandling o Karzai. It is McChrystal, notdiplomats like Eikenberry or Holbrooke,who enjoys the best relationship with theman America is relying on to lead A-ghanistan. The doctrine o counterinsur-gency requires a credible government,

and since Karzai is not considered cred-ible by his own people, McChrystal hasworked hard to make him so. Over thepast ew months, he has accompanied thepresident on more than 10 trips aroundthe country, standing beside him at polit-ical meetings, or shuras, in Kandahar. InFebruary, the day beore the doomed o-ensive in Marja, McChrystal even droveover to the presidents palace to get him tosign o on what would be the largest mil-itary operation o the year. Karzais sta,however, insisted that the president wassleeping o a cold and could not be dis-turbed. Ater several hours o haggling,

McChrystal inally enlisted the aid oAghanistans deense minister, who per-suaded Karzais people to wake the pres-ident rom his nap.

This is one o the central faws withMcChrystals counterinsurgency strat-

beore whipping a astball down themiddle.

McChrystal entered West Point in1972, when the U.S. military was closeto its all-time low in popularity. His classwas the last to graduate beore the acad-emy started to admit women. The Prisonon the Hudson, as it was known then,was a potent mix o testosterone, hooli-ganism and reactionary patriotism. Ca-dets repeatedly trashed the mess hall inood ghts, and birthdays were celebrat-ed with a tradition called rat ucking,which oten let the birthday boy outsidein the snow or mud, covered in shaving

cream. It was pretty out o control, saysLt. Gen. David Barno, a classmate whowent on to serve as the top commanderin Aghanistan rom 2003 to 2005. Theclass, lled with what Barno calls hugetalent and wild-eyed teenagers with astrong sense o idealism, also producedGen. Ray Odierno, the current command-er o U.S. orces in Iraq.

The son o a general, McChrystal wasalso a ringleader o the campus dissi-dents a dual role that taught him howto thrive in a rigid, top-down environ-ment while thumbing his nose at author-ity every chance he got. He accumulat-ed more than 100 hours o demerits ordrinking, partying and insubordination a record that his classmates boastedmade him a century man. One class-mate, who asked not to be named, recalls

inding McChrystal passed out in theshower ater downing a case o beer hehad hidden under the sink. The trouble-making almost got him kicked out, andhe spent hours subjected to orced march-es in the Area, a paved courtyard whereunruly cadets were disciplined. Id comevisit, and Id end up spending most o mytime in the library, while Stan was in theArea, recalls Annie, who began datingMcChrystal in 1973.

McChrystal wound up ranking 298 outo a class o 855, a serious underachieve-ment or a man widely regarded as bril-liant. His most compelling work was ex-tracurricular: As managing editor oThe

Pointer, the West Point literary magazine,McChrystal wrote seven short stories thateerily oreshadow many o the issues hewould conront in his career. In one tale,a ctional ocer complains about the di-culty o training oreign troops to ght;in another, a 19-year-old soldier kills aboy he mistakes or a terrorist. In Brink-mans Note, a piece o suspense ction,the unnamed narrator appears to be tr y-ing to stop a plot to assassinate the pres-ident. It turns out, however, that the nar-rator himsel is the assassin, a nd hes ableto inltrate the White House: The Pres-ident strode in smiling. From the rightcoat pocket o the raincoat I carried, Islowly drew orth my 32-caliber pistol. InBrinkmans ailure, I had succeeded.

egy: The need to build a credible gov-ernment puts us at the mercy o whatev-er tin-pot leader weve backed a dangerthat Eikenberry explicitly warned aboutin his cable. Even Team McChrystal pri-vately acknowledges that Karzai is a less-than-ideal partner. Hes been locked upin his palace the past year, laments oneo the generals top advisers. At times,Karzai himsel has actively underminedMcChrystals desire to put him in charge.During a recent visit to Walter ReedArmy Medical Center, Karzai met threeU.S. soldiers who had been wounded inUruzgan province. General, he calledout to McChrystal, I didnt even knowwe were ghting in Uruzgan!

growing up as a military brat, McChrystal exhibitedthe mixture o brilliance andcockiness that would ollowhim throughout his career.

His ather ought in Korea and Vietnam,retiring as a two-star general, and hisour brothers all joined the armed ser-vices. Moving around to dierent bases,McChrystal took solace in baseball, asport in which he made no pretense ohiding his superiority: In Little League,he would call out strikes to the crowd

mcchrystalisnt just in

charge on thebattlefield:

he also callsthe diPlomatic

shots.

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Pc. JaredPautsch. We should just dropa ucking bomb on this place.You sit and ask yoursel: Whatare we doing here?

The rules handed out hereare not what McChrystal in-tended theyve been distort-ed as they passed throughthe chain o command butknowing that does nothingto lessen the anger o troopson the ground. Fuck, when

I came over here and heardthat McChrystal wasin charge, I thought we would get our uckinggun on, says Hicks, whohas served three tours ocombat. I get COIN. Iget all that. McChrystalcomes here, explains it,it makes sense. But thenhe goes away on his bird,and by the time his di-rectives get passed downto us through Big Army,theyre all ucked up either because somebodyis trying to cover theirass, or because they justdont understand it them-selves. But were ucking losingthis thing.

McChrystal and his teamshow up the next day. Under-neath a tent, the general hasa 45-minute discussion withsome two dozen soldiers. Theatmosphere is tense. I ask youwhats going on in your world,and I think its important oryou all to understand the bigpicture as well, McChrystalbegins. Hows the companydoing? You guys eeling sorryor yourselves? Anybody? Any- body eel like youre losing?McChrystal says.

Sir, some o the guys here,sir, think were losing, sir, saysHicks.

McChrystal nods. Strengthis leading when you just dont

want to lead, he tells the men.Youre leading by example.Thats what we do. Particular-ly when its really, really hard,and it hurts inside. Then hespends 20 minutes talkingabout counterinsurgency, dia-gramming his concepts andprinciples on a whiteboard. Hemakes COIN seem like com-mon sense, but hes careul notto bullshit the men. We areknee-deep in the decisive year,he tells them. The Taliban, he

insists, no longer has the ini-tiative but I dont think wedo, either. Its similar to thetalk he gave in Paris, but its notwinning any hearts and mindsamong the soldiers. This is thephilosophical part that workswith think tanks, McChrystaltries to joke. But it doesnt getthe same reception rom inan-try companies.

During the question-and-answer period, the rustra-tion boils over. The soldierscomplain about not being al-

lowed to use lethal orce, about

watching insurgents they de-tain be reed or lack o evi-dence. They want to be ableto ght like they did in Iraq,like they had in Aghanistanbeore McChrystal. We arentputting ear into the Taliban,one soldier says.

Winning hearts and mindsin COIN is a coldbloodedthing, McChrystal says, citingan ot-repeated maxim thatyou cant kill your way out oAghanistan. The Russianskilled 1 million Aghans, andthat didnt work.

Im not saying go out andkill everybody, sir, the sol-dier persists. You say wevestopped the momentum othe insurgency. I dont be-lieve thats true in this area.

The more we pull back, themore we restrain ourselves,the stronger its getting.

I agree with you, McChrys-tal says. In this area, weve notmade progress, probably. Youhave to show strength here,you have to use re. What Imtelling you is, ire costs you.What do you want to do? You want to wipe the populationout here and resettle it?

A soldier complains thatunder the rules, any insurgent

who doesnt have a weapon isimmediately assumed to be acivilian. Thats the way thisgame is, McChrystal says. Itscomplex. I cant just decide: Itsshirts and skins, and well killall the shirts.

As the discussion ends, Mc-Chrystal seems to sense thathe hasnt succeeded at easingthe mens anger. He makes onelast-ditch eort to reach them,acknowledging the death oCpl. Ingram. Theres no way Ican make that easier, he tells

them. No way I can pretendit wont hurt. No way I cantell you not to eel that. . . .I will tell you, youre doinga great job. Dont let therustration get to you. Thesession ends with no clap-ping, and no real resolu-tion. McChrystal may havesold President Obama oncounterinsurgency, butmany o his own men arentbuying it.

When it comest o A gh a n i -stan, history is

not on McChrystals side.The only oreign invader

to have any success here wasGenghis Khan and he wasnthampered by things likehuman rights, economic de-velopment and press scrutiny.The COIN doctrine, bizarrely,draws inspiration rom someo the biggest Western mili-tary embarrassments in recentmemory: Frances nasty warin Algeria (lost in 1962) andthe American misadventurein Vietnam (lost in 1975). Mc-Chrystal, like other advocateso COIN, readily acknowl-edges that counterinsurgencycampaigns are inherentlymessy, expensive and easy tolose. Even Aghans are con-used by Aghanistan, he says.But even i he somehow man-ages to succeed, ater years o

bloody ghting with Aghankids who pose no threat to theU.S. homeland, the war will dolittle to shut down Al Qaeda,which has shited its opera-tions to Pakistan. Dispatch-ing 150,000 troops to buildnew schools, roads, mosquesand water-treatment acili-ties around Kandahar is liketrying to stop the drug warin Mexico by occupying Ar-kansas and building Baptistchurches in Little Rock. Its all

very cynical, politically, saysMarc Sageman, a ormer CIAcase ocer who has extensiveexperience in the region. A-ghanistan is not in our vitalinterest theres nothing orus there.

In mid-May, two weeks atervisiting the troops in Kanda-har, McChrystal travels to theWhite House or a high-levelvisit by Hamid Karzai. It is atriumphant moment or thegeneral, one that demonstrateshe is very much in command

both in Kabul and in Wash-ington. In the East Room, which is packed with jour-nalists and dignitaries, Pres-ident Obama sings the praiseso Karzai. The two leaders talkabout how great their relation-ship is, about the pain they eelover civilian casualties. Theymention the word progress16 times in under an hour. Butthere is no mention o victo-ry. Still, the session representsthe most orceul commitmentthat Obama has made to Mc-Chrystals strategy in months.There is no denying the prog-ress that the Aghan peoplehave made in recent years in education, in health careand economic development,the president says. As I saw inthe lights across Kabul when Ilanded lights that would nothave been visible just a ewyears earlier.

It is a disconcerting obser- vation or Obama to make.During the worst years in Iraq,when the Bush administra-tion had no real progress topoint to, ocials used to oerup the exact same evidence osuccess. It was one o our rstimpressions, one GOP ocialsaid in 2006, ater landing inBaghdad at the height o thesectarian violence. So manylights shining brightly. So it isto the language o the Iraq Warthat the Obama administra-

tion has turned talk o prog-ress, o city lights, o metricslike health care and education.Rhetoric that just a ew yearsago they would have mocked.They are trying to manipu-late perceptions because thereis no denition o victory be-cause victory is not even de-ned or recognizable, says Ce-leste Ward, a senior deenseanalyst at the RAND Corpo-ration who served as a politicaladviser to U.S. commanders in

Iraq in 2006. Thats the game were in right now. What weneed, or strategic purposes,is to create the perception thatwe didnt get run o. The actson the ground are not great,and are not going to becomegreat in the near uture.

But acts on the ground, ashistory has proven, oer lit-tle deterrent to a military de-termined to stay the course.Even those closest to Mc-Chrystal know that the risinganti-war sentiment at home

doesnt begin to relect howdeeply ucked up things arein Aghanistan. I Americanspulled back and started pay-ing attention to this war, itwould become even less pop-ular, a senior adviser to Mc-Chrystal says. Such realism,however, doesnt prevent ad- vocates o counterinsurgencyrom dreaming big: Instead obeginning to withdraw troopsnext year, as Obama promised,the military hopes to ramp upits counterinsurgency cam-paign even urther. Theresa possibility we could ask oranother surge o U.S. orcesnext summer i we see successhere, a senior military ocialin Kabul tells me.

Back in Aghanistan, lessthan a month ater the WhiteHouse meeting with Karzaiand all the talk o progress,McChrystal is hit by the big-gest blow to his vision o coun-terinsurgency. Since last year,the Pentagon had been plan-ning to launch a major mili-tary operation this summer inKandahar, the countrys sec-ond-largest city and the Tal-ibans original home base. Itwas supposed to be a decisiveturning point in the war theprimary reason or the troopsurge that McChrystal wrestedrom Obama late last year. Buton June 10th, acknowledgingthat the military still needs to

lay more groundwork, the gen-eral announced that he is post-poning the oensive until theall. Rather than one big battle,like Fallujah or Ramadi, U.S.troops will implement whatMcChrystal calls a rising tideo security. The Aghan policeand army will enter Kandaharto attempt to seize control oneighborhoods, while the U.S.pours $90 million o aid intothe city to win over the civilianpopulation.

Even proponents o counter-insurgency are hard-pressedto explain the new plan. Thisisnt a classic operation, says aU.S. military ocial. Its notgoing to be Black Hawk Down.There arent going to be doorskicked in. Other U.S. ocialsinsist that doors are going tobe kicked in, but that its goingto be a kinder, gentler oensivethan the disaster in Marja.The Taliban have a jackbooton the city, says a militaryoicial. We have to remove

them, but we have to do it ina way that doesnt alienate thepopulation. When Vice Presi-dent Biden was brieed on thenew plan in the Oval Oce,insiders say he was shocked tosee how much it mirrored themore gradual plan o coun-terterrorism that he advocat-ed last all. This looks likeCT-plus! he said, accordingto U.S. ocials amiliar withthe meeting.

Whatever the nature o thenew plan, the delay under-scores the undamental fawso counterinsurgency. Aternine years o war, the Talibansimply remains too stronglyentrenched or the U.S. mili-tary to openly attack. The verypeople that COIN seeks to winover the Aghan people donot want us there. Our sup-posed ally, President Karzai,used his inluence to delaythe oensive, and the massiveinlux o aid championed byMcChrystal is likely only tomake things worse. Throw-ing money at the problem exac-erbates the problem, says An-drew Wilder, an expert at TutsUniversity who has studied theeect o aid in southern A-ghanistan. A tsunami o cashuels corruption, delegitimiz-es the government and createsan environment where werepicking winners and losers a process that uels resentment

and hostility among the civil-ian population. So ar, coun-terinsurgency has succeededonly in creating a never-end-ing demand or the primaryproduct supplied by the mili-tary: perpetual war. There is areason that President Obamastudiously avoids using theword victory when he talksabout Aghanistan. Winning,it would seem, is not really pos-sible. Not even with StanleyMcChrystal in charge.co

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