The New York Times has a new piece on the strengthening U.S.-Yemeni partnership:

American and Yemeni officials said that a pivotal point in the relationship was reached in late summer after separate secret visits to Yemen by Gen. David H. Petraeus, the American regional commander, and John O. Brennan, President Obama’s counterterrorism adviser.

President Saleh agreed to expanded overt and covert assistance in response to growing pressure from the United States and Yemen’s neighbors, notably Saudi Arabia, from which many Qaeda operatives had fled to Yemen, as well as a rising threat against the country’s political inner circle, the officials said.

But as we all know, the U.S. is largely incapable of keeping secrets. So, it seems like we're going to have another "covert war" with "secret drone attacks" that everyone knows about. The problem is that this is likely to undermine President Saleh in the same way that American support has undermined successive Pakistani leaders. Unfortunately, the main alternatives to covert war-- overt war or doing nothing-- are less appealing. This anonymous Yemeni official hits the nail on the head:

The airstrikes of the past two weeks have been successful but have come at a price, Yemeni officials said. “They have been hit hard, but they have not yet been disabled,” said one high-ranking Yemeni official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the diplomatic issues involved. “The problem is that the involvement of the United States creates sympathy for Al Qaeda. The cooperation is necessary — but there is no doubt that it has an effect for the common man. He sympathizes with Al Qaeda.”

What is clear is that Obama has greatly expanded the role of covert warfare in America's battle against Islamic extremism.

People often compare Barack Obama to John F. Kennedy. Peter Beinart, one of my favorite liberal commentators on American national security, instead compares him to Richard Nixon in his new piece in Time.

Richard Nixon had to handle inherited American foreign policy overreach--the war in Vietnam-- just as Barack Obama is inheriting Bush's overreach in the War on Terror. The U.S. couldn't destroy communism everywhere, so Nixon worked to divide it.  Obama, Beinart argues, is attempting a similar strategy to combat Islamic fundamentalism.  Rather than lump together Iran, Hizbullah, Hamas, Al Qaeda, and the Taliban together, as Bush did, Obama wants to divide these groups, cut deals with reconcilable factions, and contain (or fight) the irreconcilables. This was the feat that Nixon accomplished by reaching out to China. Money quote:

“For roughly two decades, the U.S. had been trying to contain "communism" — another ominous, elastic noun that encompassed a multitude of movements and regimes. But Vietnam proved that this was impossible: the U.S. didn't have the money or might to keep communist movements from taking power anywhere across the globe. So Nixon stopped treating all communists the same way. Just as Obama sees Iran as a potential partner because it shares a loathing of al-Qaeda, Nixon saw Communist China as a potential partner because it loathed the U.S.S.R...It's too soon to know whether Obama's game of divide and conquer will work, but by narrowing the post-9/11 struggle, he's gained the diplomatic flexibility to play the U.S.'s adversaries against each other rather than unifying them against us.”

My prior prediction that Obama was going to announce his strategy last week was clearly wrong. However, that was based on rumors in the blogosphere. This time, Obama himself says that he's going to the finalize his decision over Thanksgiving weekend and announce his plans in a major speech next week.

In a preview to his decision, he also says that he is going to "finish the job" in Afghanistan. It looks like he's going to go in with 30,000 - 40,000 more troops, but also provide benchmarks for success and some sort of exit strategy. My previous thoughts on the issue can be found here.

What an awkward beginning to Obama’s first visit to China. On the eve of Obama’s visit, Qin Gang, Beijing’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, said that Obama should be especially understanding of China’s need to crush “splittist” factions in China, namely the Tibetans. 

Qin continued that Obama “is a black president, and he understands the slavery abolition movement and Lincoln's major significance for that movement.” Lincoln was an abolitionist who put territorial integrity of the Union first.

In the official Chinese history, independent Tibet under rule of the (13th) Dalai Lama was a feudal society. Feudalism is slavery. By conquering Tibet Mao liberated the Tibetans from feudalism. Thus, Mao/PRC = Lincoln/The Union.

The Chinese think they really struck gold with this analogy. Somehow, I don’t think that Obama agrees.

Check James Fallows's analyisis here.

A few thoughts on Obama’s decision-making process for Afghanistan: 

1. He is not going to simply agree to a 40,000 troop increase. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be taking so long.

2. Publicly questioning the military leadership on strategy takes immense courage. I agree with Sullivan—Bush could never have done this. Bush had no credibility, nor confidence, and so outsourced the responsibility to Patraeus. If the surge failed, he was simply following his expert general. If the surge succeeded, Bush could take credit, and he did. Furthermore, its always easier to double down on sunk costs and thus postpone the final day of reckoning, even if it’s the wrong move.

3. Obama is determined to connect any influx of troops to the political process in Afghanistan. When he refused to say that he was wrong about the Iraq surge during the campaign, he meant it. The Iraq surge was supposed to open up room for political reconciliation, which has yet to happen. Iraq could still very plausibly descend into civil war when the U.S. pulls out.

Similarly, a surge in Afghanistan has to be for something, not just a temporary reduction in violence. But that’s why the recent election was such as disaster. Karzai is illegitimate and ineffectual. Obama does not want to sacrifice more American blood and treasure just to prolong Karzai’s corrupt rule.

War is politics by other means. It's a tactic for achieving a political goal. That is what the Eikenberry cables were about, and that is what is keeping Obama up at night. This week will be interesting.

The more that  I think about U.S. policy in Afghanistan, the more that I wonder about Obama's motives.

Moving troops from Iraq to Afghanistan was good politics for the presidential campaign.  It spoke to people who felt that the War in Iraq was a mistake from the start, while ameliorating hawks' concerns that Obama was a pacifist.  But now Obama can't change his Afghanistan policy without a lot of political fallout.

Is increasing our military commitment to Afghanistan the right policy? It's a close call.  I sense that Obama is privately much more apprehensive about it than he is letting out.

- Jon

Jay Solomon at the Wall Street Journal thinks it's this guy. I wouldn't doubt it.

-Evan