How Bergdahl’s release turned into political defeat for Obama
The US soldier Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl is in a stable condition, recovering from five years’ imprisonment by the Taliban. He’s receiving treatment at a US military medical facility in Germany.
Normally, the release of an American soldier by the enemy would prompt an outpouring of national celebration, and sympathy for his ordeal. But Bowe Bergdahl is not on the receiving end of either.
It’s complicated by the circumstances around his capture. Five years’ worth of silence has exploded into a furious outpouring by fellow soldiers. They cast vitriol on the idea that he may be a hero – instead berating him for deserting his post, and condemning him for the lives lost by those who died in the intense three month search that followed his disappearance.
The Bergdahl family, and hometown of Hailey Idaho, are holding the line, asking that he not be pre-judged. The president, who’s currently on a European tour, says regardless of the circumstances, there was one choice – and that was bringing Sergeant Bergdahl home. It’s all part of the sacred contract America has with its servicemen and women.
Still, it’s not playing well for what the Obama administration might have hoped would be seen as a clear-cut diplomatic victory. But there is, naturally enough, politics at play here as well.
With every interview, Republican senators elevate the seniority of the five Taliban prisoners swapped for Sergeant Bergdahl. There’d never been enough evidence to try them for anything at Guantanamo, but in the minds of figures such as Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe, they are “perhaps the most dangerous terrorists that were at Guantanamo”.
Which will be news to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Qatar – a strong American ally – is suddenly not to be trusted in its custodianship of the five. The price, in the minds of President Obama’s critics, too high.
Negotiations over Bowe Bergdahl’s release had extended over three years. They involved officials from the White House, State Department and Pentagon, with Qatar acting as a go-between. While the initial idea may have been to win broader concessions from the Taliban, as well as Bowe Bergdahl, that approach didn’t work. There was an 18-month hiatus.
In the meantime, the US deadline for withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan crept ever closer, and so the opportunity was taken to free Bowe Bergdahl when it came.
For those involved, it must feel nothing more than catastrophic that their victory has transformed so thoroughly into a political and popular defeat.
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