Pretending in Afghanistan
By Jack Kelly, Real Clear politics
Obama is playing political games with Afghanistan
The attention of the punditocracy was diverted from Obamacare this week by conservative columnist George Will’s call for a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan (and a second column calling for a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, as well).
The war in Afghanistan is not going well. U.S. casualties so far this year are already higher than in any of the previous seven years of our involvement there. President Barack Obama is considering a request from Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the new U.S. commander in Afghanistan, for an additional two to four brigades on top of the 65,000 U.S. troops already in the country.
Mr. Obama must be wondering how this could be happening to him. Afghanistan was supposed to be the good war. He’d embraced it less out of conviction than out of political calculation. Mr. Obama
was strongly opposed to the war in Iraq, but mindful of the perception many voters have that Democrats are weak on national security. By embracing the war in Afghanistan, he could argue he was willing to use force, too, to protect America’s national security. He was just smarter about it than George Bush was.
Basing national security policy chiefly upon domestic political posturing has its downside, as the president is learning now. If he accedes to Gen. McChrystal’s request, he will own the war in Afghanistan in the same way Lyndon Johnson owned the war in Vietnam. But if he denies the request, he’ll also own the consequences.
Tags: Barack Obama, fraud, pretending in Afghanistan, Tough on Defense