How will Obama continue to wage war on an anti-war foundation?

I was on the Diane Rehm show yesterday as part of a panel discussing Afghanistan. All of the questions and comments from the audience and the host boiled down to the same plaintive query: Won’t we all be better off if we leave Afghanistan sooner rather than later, faster rather than slower, and doesn’t the killing of bin Laden give us the perfect excuse to do so?

Bin Laden’s death certainly provides a psychological moment to exit stage left. And Obama’s base seems impelled to do so, driven by two somewhat contradictory sentiments.

On the one hand, part of the desire to leave seems predicated on the notion that Afghanistan is a lost cause. We have to get out because we are essentially defeated in the mission goals of defeating al Qaeda and degrading the Taliban down to the point where we can reach a political accommodation with the remnant and thereby stabilize a unified and effectively governing representative central authority in Kabul. The killing of bin Laden doesn’t change this basic fact, so the thinking goes, but like a magician’s trick it provides enough of a sensational distraction to hide what is essentially a strategic retreat.

On the other hand, part of the desire to leave seems predicated on the notion that Obama has actually won the war on terror. We have accomplished all we have set out to accomplish, so the thinking goes, and have defeated al Qaeda. Any move that suggests the struggle is ongoing — say a move to vote on Congressional authorization for ongoing military operations — is suspected of being a ploy to trap the United States in a permanent war.

What unites these disparate impulses is a common article of faith: leaving Afghanistan involves little or no risk whereas staying a bit longer in Afghanistan involves major risk.  The left appears to be freighting the Afghan war with all of the baggage it once foisted upon the Iraq war.  One of the callers into the radio show even asserted that leaving Afghanistan would fix the U.S. economy and end unemployment.

This is the (no doubt sincerely held) fantasy that fuels so much of the critique of American "militarism." It is the belief (hope?) that American engagement with the world produces only problems whereas U.S. retreat produces only solutions. There is nothing wrong with the United States that can’t be fixed with a little military retreat around the world. Ironically, it signifies a naive confidence in U.S. military power far in excess of even the most hawkish of interventionists, only the panacea involves the non-use rather than the use of military force.

I left the show wondering how President Obama will keep such voters enthusiastic about his reelection without satisfying them on their core issues.  

P.S.  However he does it, I am guessing it won’t be by directly engaging the base and trying to persuade them.  Check out this article in the New York Times, which outlines the dilemma confronting President Obama of how to conduct military operations in Libya beyond the deadline imposed by the War Powers Act. The article describes all sorts of legal gimmickry the administration is considering to get around this constraint including artificial pauses and hair-splitting restrictions to the rules of engagement. The obvious option of asking for Congressional authorization appears not to be even under consideration, presumably because it would require persuading balky legislators to support the mission.