Take Your Sweet Time, Obama
Take Your Sweet Time, Obama – Andrew Exum, The Daily Beast
President Obama is entering the final stages of his deliberations of Afghanistan. He’s deciding whether to send more troops, or reframe U.S. policy to allow for something less than the counterinsurgency campaign he promised in March. As he ponders, it’s hard not to feel a little sympathy for the commander in chief. He and his administration are trying to find a path to victory in a difficult war in Central Asia while at the same time navigating treacherous political terrain at home.
Popular support for the war has fallen rapidly over the last six months—the product, in part, of a near-decade of constant war that has left large portions of the American public drifting toward neo-isolationism. At the same time, the president is coming under pressure from political opponents and concerned moderates who worry Obama’s caution is wasting a very short window of opportunity in which the United States can affect the situation in Afghanistan through the application of more resources to both train Afghan security forces and protect population centers targeted by insurgent groups in places like Khost and Kandahar. “Obama is dithering on Afghanistan” was the headline for the normally temperate Financial Times columnist Clive Crook Monday, and my colleague Tom Ricks, an Obama supporter and seasoned observer of military affairs, has expressed similar concern about the administration’s decision-making process.
But there are two very good reasons why the Obama administration should take its time on its decision with respect to our Afghanistan policy. There are also reasons why both sides in the current debate should give the White House the time to do so…
More at The Daily Beast.
