Obama's isolation grows on the Afghanistan war

[unhappycamper]

Obama's isolation grows on the Afghanistan war
By Susan Page, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Afghanistan has become a lonely place for President Obama.

One year ago today, the president delivered a seminal speech at West Point, N.Y., announcing the deployment of 30,000 additional U.S. servicemembers to Afghanistan and setting a timetable to begin withdrawing them in July 2011 — a combination calibrated to reassure those who saw the conflict as critical to U.S. security and those uneasy with an open-ended military conflict.

Now, the administration is playing down the date combat troops will begin to come home and focusing instead on 2014 as the target for the pullout to be completed, conditions permitting.

The new end date leaves Obama at odds with his Democratic base, which wants troops out faster, and with newly empowered Republican critics in Congress, who oppose deadlines and timetables altogether. It guarantees the war will be ongoing when Obama presumably runs for re-election in 2012.

And if the military and political situations fail to improve in Afghanistan, the president could face a revolt in his own party and unrelenting fire from the GOP as he defends his leadership on what is already America's longest war.

[BrklynLiberal]

1. Afghanistan could become to Obama what Viet Nam was to Johnson.

The repukes led him by the nose right into this shithole....

[elocs]

2. "I will not seek, nor will I accept..." I remember watching and hearing those lines.

I wonder if I will again?

[BrklynLiberal]

3. I am starting to get this really sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach.

[rug]

4. McCarthy announced his candidacy three months before the NH primary.

Completely antiwar-driven campaign.

[Bragi]

5. This is sad, but no surprise

I wrote in these forums during the election, and after, that Pres. Obama's policy of escalating the alleged "good war" in Afghanistan would undermine his Presidency. I truly hoped he would find a way to finesse his unwise campaign promise.

Unfortunately, he did not do this, but instead allowed himself to be run by the MIC on his war policy. What we see in this opinion poll is more evidence that his refusal to stop what is now "his war" is, in fact, undermining his Presidency.

Sad state of affairs. Unfortunately, I see no signs of any recognition on his part that he has made a very serious economic, political and foreign policy blunder by escalating this war.

[somone]

6. Just trying to establish his pro-war credentials

and hoping that the Republicans will vote for him.

[Bragi]

7. Agreed, that was the idea all along

I presume we all recall that the myth of Afghanistan being the "good war" was the result of the feeble attempt by cowardly Congressional democrats not to appear "anti-war" in opposing (or at least not strongly supporting) Bush's war in Iraq.

Obama, unfortunately, embraced this "good war" theory and put it right into his election platform.

The war has been -- to use an older phrase -- a cancer on his Presidency ever since.