Analysis: Obama 'Resigned' to Being Wartime President

WASHINGTON (Aug. 31) -- When President Barack Obama addresses the nation from the Oval Office tonight to announce the formal end of combat in Iraq, he will sit where another Democratic commander in chief explained to the nation how another war had defeated his hopes for re-election.

If the Vietnam War ended Lyndon Johnson's political career, it remains to be seen whether the continuing war in Afghanistan will contribute to making Obama, whose approval ratings hover below 50 percent, a one-term president. But there is one legacy he shares with Johnson and other recent Democratic presidents: a reputation for being namby-pamby when it comes to the military.

"Obama struggles with the perception that Democrats are not as committed to defense as Republicans," said Julian Zelizer, a Princeton University historian and author of "Arsenal of Democracy: The Politics of National Security -- From World War II to the War on Terrorism."

Eyed with suspicion by military leaders since the original cold warrior, Harry Truman, left the White House and far worse feelings after the debacle in Vietnam, Democrats today also face a more Republican-leaning officer corps, he said.

"It predates him [Obama] and he's struggling," Zelizer said.

The conventional wisdom that Republicans are tougher on defense than Democrats isn't new nor necessarily true. Before the 9/11 attacks created a unified front against al-Qaida, Republican President George W. Bush's first defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, regularly battled military leaders.

And as for the GOP bromide that "Democrats start wars, Republicans end them," Obama inherited two conflicts from Bush, despite the latter's much-regretted insistence that Iraq was a fait accompli. On Tuesday, the president will declare the combat mission in Iraq at an end without the words "mission accomplished" passing his lips.

Obama ran as an anti-war candidate and remains a reluctant warrior more than 18 months after taking office. Like Democrat Bill Clinton and the younger Bush -- who served stateside in the National Guard during the Vietnam War -- he is a "post-military president" who has had to learn on the job about the labyrinthine ways of the Pentagon, said Thomas Ricks, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and the author of two books about the Iraq war.

"He has been slow to realize he is the president, and what that means for handling the military," Ricks said.

Referring to Obama's surprise when a roomful of generals stood when he walked into the room for the first time as president, he said, "I don't think he realized that they were standing for the system, not for him personally."

Ricks said Bush, like other Republicans, had a tendency "toward mindless cheer leading of the military, endorsing whatever they recommend." Democrats, on the other hand, tend to bring a "distrust of military advice, believing it all to be oriented too much toward the use of force. This is actually a somewhat easier prejudice to overcome, because a few quick conversations with the military leadership, if conducted honestly and openly, will underscore the diversity of opinion and the sophistication of thought among the generals."

Surrounded by Brass

Military observers give Obama high marks for surrounding himself with seasoned military veterans. By keeping Bush's secretary of defense, Robert Gates, the president gave himself political cover for sending more troops to Afghanistan and cutting military spending. He named former Marine commandant and NATO commander James Jones to be his national security adviser. And, while it didn't work out, his first director of national intelligence was a retired Navy admiral, Dennis Blair.

"He is taking a very different tack," said Peter Feaver, a Bush adviser and expert on civil-military relations. By keeping Gates, who has held senior leaders accountable when they haven't measured up, the president is "making a deliberate attempt to show he's not afraid of the military," he said.

Still, "he is wrestling with the role of wartime president," Feaver said. "He may be resigned to it, but he has not embraced it like Bush."

Obama has tried to draw contrasts with Bush. He was criticized by veterans groups for lifting an 18-year ban on photos of the coffins of war dead at Dover Air Force Base put in place by President George H.W. Bush. But he was lauded when he later went there to honor 18 fallen Americans killed in Afghanistan. The younger Bush never went to Dover to see the fallen return, choosing instead to console grieving families elsewhere. Some even noted that, unlike Clinton, Obama knew how to offer a proper salute.

Obama learned much about what not to do from the last Democratic president before him. Having avoided the draft during the Vietnam War, when he wrote of having a "loathing" for the military, Clinton started his administration with few friends at the Pentagon. He lost those few when he made his first order of business lifting the ban on gays in the military. And it didn't help his popularity when a staffer in the White House disdainfully told the nation's most decorated active-duty officer, "I don't talk to the military."

Clinton didn't make things any better when he tried to ignore an Air Force general who called him a "gay-loving, pot-smoking, draft-dodging womanizer." Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Colin Powell, who led the opposition to allowing openly gay service members, finally stepped in to squelch such insubordination and fired the general. But the commander in chief's "delay and uncertainty reveal just how afraid they were" of the military, Feaver said.

Obama's handling of the situation when Gen. Stanley McChrystal spoke out of turn to Rolling Stone magazine was a marked contrast, said Stephen Biddle, a defense analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations. Not only did the overwhelming majority of senior officers believe that the Afghanistan commander had to go, but they liked the way the president brought down the hammer.

The White House was "decisive, dignified, they appeared to have given due deliberation to what they had done and had a plan for what was next," Biddle said. "The whole thing was crisp, businesslike and dignified, and those are all things the military values. ... They're clearly putting time and effort in to get the relationship right."

Which is not to say that senior officers have been shy about openly criticizing their commander in chief. Whether on Obama's intention to lift the ban on openly gay service members or his July 2011 deadline to begin drawing down troop levels in Afghanistan, generals have spoken out.

But unlike the firestorm in 1993 over gays in the military, when uniformed leaders were in lockstep opposed to lifting the ban, there isn't a single voice inside the Pentagon today, Biddle said. Some brass favor troop surges and no time constraints in Afghanistan, while others believe it is past time to get out.

Ralph Peters, a retired Army officer and military strategist, said if Obama has a problem with military leaders it isn't because of his party affiliation but because he views "military affairs as political problems first, strategic problems second."

He also said that before joining the U.S. Senate, Obama took little interest in military affairs.

"Southside Chicago was not adequate preparation to lead not only the USA, but our web of alliances," Peters said. "He's trying, but there's no 'A for effort' in war."

Feaver also senses a missing "gut-level commitment to these wars" that irks military leaders who want their president to be as all-in on the fight as they are. Still, he said Obama has taken pains to distinguish himself from Clinton and to prove that he can be as tough as any Republican when it comes to national security.

"Generals that have had regular interactions with him have spoken of how they respect his intelligence. He respects them and hears their views," Feaver said. "He gets high marks from people who have been in the room with him."