My Point, Exactly

Uh, Yeah Right blogged yesterday about Afghanistan now being Obama's war. I believe that Obama has made the right decision in escalating because it returns the conflict in Afghanistan to its original goal: destroying Al Qaeda, and hopefully killing Osama bin Laden (and Zawahiri). First and foremost, this is about protecting and furthering American interests, which do not include nation-building in what Andrew Sullivan calls a "lunar landscape run by a kleptocracy."

A Sullivan reader and Andrew himself echo my sentiments. First the reader:

It is foolish on so many levels to make an open-ended commitment, so Obama—unusual in my view—has made the right call: escalate, hopefully inflict substantial casualties on the Taliban and AQ, possibly snag OBL in the process, and then get out on our terms rather than departing in a fashion that looks, to the Muslim world, like retreat.

My italics. Now Sully:

By giving the military a chance to inflict maximal damage on the Taliban and the CIA lee-way to do the same to al Qaeda within Pakistan, Obama means to achieve maximal weakening of foes before a strategic withdrawal.

Any withdrawal will be met with Romney-Palin-style accusations of weakness, treason, irresolution. But a withdrawal after a big surge is less likely to be successfully targeted in that manner. And after ten years, will Americans really want to keep 100,000 troops in a lunar landscape run by a kleptocracy because that's where al Qaeda used to hang out? The more I think about this, the smarter it is - both militarily and politically.

But that tends to happen with Obama decisions, doesn't it?

And, of course, the corporate media will prove itself wholly incapable of grasping this kind of nuance, and they will fall all over themselves looking for (mostly) Republican politicians and pundits who will let any amount of vitriol spill from their mouths to make for good TV or print.

Case in point, Forbes' Michael Rubin:

Iraq’s surge succeeded because Bush convinced Iraqis that he would not subvert his commitment to victory to politics. Bush’s actions showed insurgents had misjudged the U.S. and that Bin Laden was wrong: The U.S. was no paper tiger. Iraqis, no more attracted to al-Qaida’s extreme vision than ordinary Afghans are to the Taliban, believed America to be strong. Rather than make accommodations to the terrorists, Iraqis could fight them. The Sunni tribesmen believed that the U.S. would guard their back, and let neither al-Qaida nor Iranian proxies run roughshod over them. For Iraqis and Afghans, it is an easy decision to ally with militarily superior forces led by a commander-in-chief with a clear and demonstrable will to victory.

Obama is not Bush.

Oh, Michael, such revisionist claptrap. After eight years of Bush, Cheney and Rove, absolutely everything done in Iraq and Afghanistan was done for political (and economic) reasons over victory.