On Tuesday night President Obama gave an uncharacteristically bland speech regarding his way forward in Afghanistan. In one sentence he said he was adding 30,000 troops while shortly thereafter he said he would be removing them. It’s enough to make one nostalgic for John Kerry’s “clarification” of how he voted for the war in Iraq before he voted against it. So our Waffler in Chief has given the enemy their battle plan: hunker down; keep a low profile; don’t back me into a corner, and beginning in July 2011, while we’re packing up you can be ramping up. Bush never committed to an end date certain for that very reason. They way you defeat the enemy is by making it clear that you will finish the job, no matter how long it takes.
It’s All Karzai’s Fault!
With this administration, it’s always somebody else’s fault. But put yourself in Karzai’s shoes. If you have the U.S. on one side, and the Taliban on the other with the U.S. packing up and the Taliban sharpening their knives, who are you going to cut a deal with? They guy who plans to be there for the next 20 years or the guy who plans to be there for the next 20 months? There is one way to deal with the bad guys who plan on being there for the next 20 years and that’s to make sure they spend those next 20 years six feet under.
We had similar challenges in Iraq, but once Bush ordered the surge and the bad guys knew we were going to finish the job, they started cutting deals of their own. Many came over to our side and helped end the violence in a number of provinces. Peace through strength. It works. Weakness fires up the enemy and emboldens him. You decide which is the better strategy.
