From Joe Klein over at Time:
The war in Afghanistan — the war that President-elect Barack Obama pledged to fight and win — has become an aimless absurdity. It began with a specific target. Afghanistan was where Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda lived, harbored by the Islamic extremist Taliban government. But the enemy escaped into Pakistan, and for the past seven years, Afghanistan has been a slow bleed against an array of mostly indigenous narco-jihadi-tribal guerrilla forces that we continue to call the “Taliban.” These ragtag bands are funded by opium profits and led by assorted religious extremists and druglords, many of whom have safe havens in Pakistan.
Subtext: Its the wrong war against the wrong enemy at the wrong time and the sooner we’re out of it, the better.
Get ready, President-elect Obama, for the MSM and the larger left to turn heavily against you vis a vis Afghanistan. Any basis of support you had for your hawkish stance on Afghanistan and Pakistan was mere campaign rhetoric – something designed to take national security off the table and/or denigrate McCain’s sponsorship of the victory in Iraq. The MSM and the left will now revert to their default position – the enemy is always better than we are, our troops are always incompetent when not criminal, we’re making things worse and our sins make it in our best interest to lose.
Now, Obama could just turn on a dime and endorse defeat in Afghanistan with a swift withdrawal of US forces and then start writing up the diplomatic notes deploring the rising violence in an Afghanistan swirling down into chaos. But will he do so? I’m not so sure – in fact, I don’t think he will, at least not initially. There is a huge downside to losing even an inherited war – especially when your military is flush with recent victory elsewhere and is willing and able to take on the task you have set it in Afghanistan. The only upside of cutting and running in Afghanistan is that it will please kook leftists, whom Obama need never please again as long as he lives.
The upside of staying in Afghanistan and allowing our superb military to win is that Obama will then become a victorious war President and that issue is taken away from the GOP at least as long as Obama is in office, and perhaps longer. Additionally, we’d be helping to, ya know?, liberate people and make a better world – that sort of thing which doesn’t appeal to the left, but does appeal to everyone with a bit of sense. As I stated on election night, in regard to our military actions overseas, Obama will have my tireless support and any criticism I make will be designed to help win the war faster. So, count me as an Obamaniac regarding Afghanistan – and I pray that he will tell the MSM and the left to go jump in a lake when the going gets tough, as it certainly will.
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