The Wisdom of the Executive Branch

The military bows to the wisdom of the executive branch. This is a republic, a democratic-liberal government whose military is at the service of the government and the people. And the military does not always receive the unswerving support it claims is required in the best interests of their country's future. For their perspective is that of a military, not a civil-governing body.

A conversion can and does take place when a former military leader becomes a country's leader.

Not as it did in Pakistan, when a military coup brought Prime Minister Musharraf to power, but when Dwight Eisenhower left the Supreme Command of the United States military and was elected to the Presidency. And President Eisenhower was then proven to be capable of altering his perspective, seeing matters from the angle of a civil governor.

Of course, he wasn't a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and President Obama is. For whatever that's worth in bestowing wisdom on a living president.

But this living president presides over a country in steep economic decline and deeply in trouble with itself, its politics and its societal values. It is a country newly-conflicted about its super-power status, modestly standing back from its internationally valued even while decried, status as conscience of the world, a standing that it often failed spectacularly, but more often succeeded at wonderfully well.

Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff testified before the House of Representatives armed services committee - audaciously, under the circumstances, revealing a breach of opinion of substantial proportions between the president and his senior officers. The latter being loathe to leave the theatre of war in Afghanistan on the time-table expressed by the former.

Despite the appeal by General Petraeus to allow the influx of troops to remain for a more prolonged period, and to be re-deployed to the east of Afghanistan from the south which it had succeeded in partially pacifying, and to agree to a departure of all troops at a much further date into the future, President Obama looks to his own future, comprising his re-election opportunities with an electorate fed up with the huge costs in lives and treasury, in Afghanistan.

After all, as he pointed out, the first purpose of the invasion and friendly-assistance occupation was to rout Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda from their comfortable perch as hosted by the Afghanistan Taliban. Done. Revealing incontrovertibly the miserable discomfiture of having to ally themselves with such an obvious twisted-tongue ally as Pakistan in an effort to destabilize and defeat the resurgent Taliban has turned into a bit of a farce.

For Pakistan has turned into its own problem for the United States and indeed for the world at large. It is terror central. Its intention to eventually, with the withdrawal of ISAF and U.S. troops is to claim control of Afghanistan in its bitter battle with India, competing for the 'hearts and minds' of Afghanistan. And, as a retired CIA officer involved in President Obama's review of regional strategy recently remarked:

"What the Abbottabad raid demonstrated more vividly than ever is that we need a base to strike targets in Pakistan, and the geography is simple. You need to do that from Afghanistan."

Tables turned quite neatly.