Obama's West Point Afghan Speech -- Very Disappointing

So bad was his speech, that I turned on the Knick game instead -- the Knicks !!

A few quick comments from the VRWC all sharing the disappointment in Obama's me myself and I oratory.

Conflicting Message [Bill Roggio]
President Obama has released his long-awaited and long-deliberated path forward on Afghanistan. There were few if any surprises, as the bulk of the strategy points were leaked to the media over the past several days. Obama approved 30,000 troops to deploy vice General McChrystal's request of 40,000, but it wasn’t expected that the full 40,000 would be sent. The two major concerns from Obama’s path forward are the proposed timeline for withdrawal and the replacements for the U.S. surge troops, while the message to the Afghan people is muddled at best.
The surge in U.S. forces will be completed by the summer of 2010, and President Obama said that the military will begin to withdraw beginning in July 2011, just one year after the increase in forces, security conditions permitting. First, the setting of a timeline gives the Taliban and allied Islamist groups all of the evidence they need that the U.S. and the West seeks to leave the country sooner rather than later. Expect Obama timeline to be used in al-Qaeda and Taliban propaganda. Second, the timeline reaffirms Pakistan’s belief that the U.S. stay in Afghanistan is short lived. The incentive for Pakistan to take on the “good Taliban” groups in their tribal areas that attack U.S. and NATO forces has eroded. And third, Obama has not explained from where the Afghan troops to take over from withdrawing U.S. forces will come. Afghanistan has an 80,000 man army and its police forces are in disarray. Unlike Iraq, there is no glut of troops to turn over security to.
Finally, Obama’s message to the Afghan people was poorly crafted and delivered. First he told them their security and development is important. Later he said the overriding U.S. objective is to defeat al-Qaeda and nation building is not a requirement. He can’t have it both ways, and the fence-sitters in Afghanistan won’t be encouraged by the conflicting message. — Bill Roggio is the managing editor of The Long War Journal.


Obama Hard and Soft, Right and Left [Fred Thompson]
I was wondering how he was going to pull off the famous Obama split tonight.
He did it chronologically, and in two ways.

First, in the speech itself:
In the first part of his speech he sounded like Winston Churchill.
In the second part of his speech, he sounded like Lady Churchill.

Secondly, with regard to his course of action:
Commit troops for the Right, and then
Announce their withdrawal prematurely, in time for the 2012 election — for the Left.

It was clear for the world to see that we are without the most important ingredient for a chance of success: a determined president whose heart is in the effort.



A Commander-in-Chief & His Lieutenant [Kori Schake]
The president was underwhelming at West Point. On one of the gravest strategic issues of our time, the golden orator of our political scene labored through his compulsories to make the case for why we should win a war that if we lose will invigorate the jihadist cause, put untenable pressure on the governments of Pakistan and India (to say nothing of the tragedy for Afghanistan), potentially put al-Qaeda in possession of nuclear weapons, and increase the risk of future attacks on our homeland. It was not a performance that will give heart to Afghans, countries in the region whose security depends on our success, or allies with forces committed to this fight. Or, I suspect, persuade many Americans who do not already support his policy.
Most striking was the dramatic mismatch between the dire consequences of failure and the very limited means the president intends to bring to bear. The goals he has established for Afghanistan cannot be achieved in the time frame he committed to begin withdrawing troops in. Afghanistan fell 2,000 recruits short last month alone in meeting its current goal of 134,000 soldiers and 83,000 police. The president’s new approach envisions producing additional Afghan forces superior in quantity and quality to the present. That is wildly unrealistic.
To emphasize in the same breath the importance of increased forces and the necessity of removing them in eighteen months will badly diminish the positive effect those troops are intended to have. The point of counterinsurgency approach is to protect the population so that they participate in security efforts and change the political dynamic of the war. The president was silent on what he will do if his objectives are not achieved.
As in Iraq, the president doesn’t have an exit strategy, he has an exit timeline. He did not outline the positive conditions that must be met for our withdrawal to proceed. He did not provide a vision of an Afghanistan that is capable of achieving what we need for our country to be secure. He provided an absolute withdrawal date that will encourage our enemies to game the timeline, and discourage our friends from helping.
He brushed lightly over election fraud in Afghanistan, saying that despite it, a government was formed “consistent with the country’s laws and constitution.” I’m not sure what that even means, but I am sure it will give encouragement to despots that the president of the United States is legitimating fraudulent elections by such contorted logic.
Toward the end of his speech, the president spoke of “might and moral suasion,” which turn out to be the only tools of American power three months of additional review. We still don’t have a strategy for Afghanistan. We only have a military strategy for Afghanistan. Where was the “dramatic increase in our civilian effort” the president promised in March? There were literally no political, economic, agricultural, judicial, drug enforcement, or educational programs included in the president’s speech. When he spoke briefly of non-military matters, it was only to press for reforms of the Karzai government.
And the president asked for no effort from the 99 percent of Americans who are not in our military. We are still not a country at war, we are a military at war.
On a personal note, it made ring hollow the president’s claims to virtue in the extended duration of his second Afghanistan review in ten months to see a former student of mine at West Point, Lt. Dan Berschinski in the audience. He is now a double amputee, having suffered his wounds on patrol in Afghanistan during the months the president was methodically considering his options.
The president kept 68,000 soldiers and Marines in harm’s way while he pondered whether it merited his political capital to pay the ticket price of his grand rhetoric about this good war, this war of necessity, that had been scandalously under-resourced. Afghanistan remains all of those things, even after the president’s “new” new Afghan strategy

. — Kori Schake is a fellow at the Hoover Institution and an Associate Professor at West Point. She was director for defense strategy on the NSC and deputy director of policy Planning at State.


What Could Have Been [Jamie M. Fly]
There are many on the Right who will criticize the president's speech tonight — particularly his statement of a specific date for a U.S. drawdown to begin. However, it is worth reflecting on what could have been in the speech that was not — off ramps, assessments of progress before the bulk of the additional troops were deployed — all opportunities for a hesitant president of a war-weary party to reverse course and rethink his Afghanistan strategy once again.There is none of that in tonight's speech. President Obama has clearly rejected the advice of Vice President Biden and many of his political advisers who wanted to hedge our bets in Afghanistan. By sending 21,000 troops earlier this year and announcing plans to send 30,000 more this evening, this president has made it clear that he intends to give his commanders a chance to win in Afghanistan and those of us on the right should support him in that endeavor.There will be time to criticize various inflection points and question details, but the fact of the matter is that Barack Obama has accepted the mantle of wartime president and even overcome his aversion to American exceptionalism to employ some rhetoric that is worthy of George W. Bush. General McChrystal will get most of the troops he requested and the time required to implement a counterinsurgency strategy that offers the best chance of success. Now the president must speak regularly and frankly to the American people about the difficult road ahead, something he has been unwilling to do thus far. If he does that, fewer conservatives will question his commitment to a war that we all agree needs to be won.

— Jamie M. Fly is executive director of the Foreign Policy Initiative.
12/01 11:04 PM


The Test [Rich Lowry]
I didn’t like the speech for many of the reasons that have been outlined already in this space. Here's the real test, though: Is Gen. McChrystal in Kabul regretting that Obama didn't strike a more Churchillian tone, or is he very glad to have the troops and the time—at least 18 months before the start of any draw down—to try to turn around the war? Surely, it's the latter. I went back and looked at Bush's speech announcing the surge. It holds up very well. It's prescient even. But at the time, as a piece of rhetoric, it didn't matter too much because basically no one was listening to Bush any more. It wasn't the words that saved the war, it was the incredibly courageous troops who went—finally, in sufficient numbers and with the proper strategic goal—into Baghdad neighborhoods and cleared out al Qaeda and the Shia militias. Those troops changed the dynamic of the war on the ground, and nothing else was as important. Yes, the Petraeus testimony made a difference, but it was only persuasive to the extent he had the actual progress to talk about and he was perhaps even more restrained than Obama tonight when he made the case for the war. Likewise, the Afghan war will be won or lost on the ground and Obama has given McChrystal the basic tools he needs. About that we should be very glad.


Hardware vs. Software [John Hannah]
A frustrating speech. There's much to applaud in the nuts and bolts. Assuming the president's confidence is borne out and U.S. allies actually dispatch several thousand more troops, he will have gone most of the way in meeting his on-the-ground commander's request for additional forces. That's an enormous leap in capability and firepower that Generals McChrystal and Petraeus will no doubt put to good use in reversing the war's tide — especially if the president can also deliver on his promise to have the bulk of the surge in place in time for the 2010 fighting season. In making this historic commitment of additional blood and treasure in defense of America's vital interests, the president has openly rejected the defeatist counsel of his own party's powerful left wing — no easy task and one for which he deserves real credit and support.
But if the president largely got the policy hardware right, the software left something to be desired. The speech in places was uncomfortably defensive. The continued trashing of his predecessor unfortunate. But most distressing was the unmistakable subtext of withdrawal, rather than victory, that ran through the heart of the president's remarks. The security of America and the world is at stake in Afghanistan — yet we need to begin drawing down our forces within a year after their arrival and leave the job in the hands of the (allegedly corrupt and incompetent) locals because the effort has already taken too long and cost too much. Hardly Churchillian. Not the sort of stuff likely to rally a war-weary public at home, get fearful Afghans off the fence, or begin breaking the fighting spirit of the Taliban. Of course, at the end of the day, all those things can most convincingly be accomplished by the progress that our newly reinforced troops achieve on the field of battle in 2010 and 2011. But their effort will be immeasurably enhanced by President Obama's rapid emergence as a wartime leader who exudes the conviction that there simply is no substitute for victory, and that nothing could be more harmful to our country than defeat in a conflict deemed vital to our national interests.
The president could best advance that critical task by adding an Afghan stop to next week's trip to Copenhagen for the climate conference and Oslo to pick up his Nobel Prize. He badly needs to go see the troops, tell them in person that help is on the way, and make clear his certitude in the justness of their cause and the unequivocal nature of his commitment to defeating our enemies. He should also make sure to reiterate to them what in many ways was the most bracing part of tonight's speech: His inspiring recitation of America's unparalleled contributions and sacrifices on behalf of the security and wellbeing of the human race over the last century. And while he's at it, he'd do well to remind his audiences in Copenhagen and Oslo of the very same thing.

— John P. Hannah, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, served as national security adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney from 2005 to 2009.


Where's the Beef? [James S. Robbins]
President Obama spent a long time in the kitchen to serve up a plate of leftovers. The president stated that there were “three core elements” to his strategy: “a military effort to create the conditions for a transition, a civilian surge that reinforces positive action and an effective partnership with Pakistan.” These core elements were part of the Obama strategy announced in March 2009, and were also pillars of the successive Bush administration policies. They would be no-brainer aspects of any Afghan strategy. How they are implemented will prove whether the president can successfully be a war leader, but Mr.Obama could have begun this process last March when he announced basically the same thing, though in much greater detail.
The only new element in the strategy is the 18-month timeline for beginning the process of withdrawal. The timeline is arbitrary, and at least implicitly conditional on making progress in Afghanistan, but the president did not offer much in the way of details as to how progress will be made, and has dropped his previous insistence on well-defined metrics. He briefly noted the challenges facing the Afghan government, but simply said they would be held accountable, whatever that means. And did not offer any details about how the Taliban who threaten the regime will be defeated. He said the 30,000 troops are the “resources that we need to seize the initiative,” but did not explain how the initiative will be seized, how the troops will be used, or what constitutes victory.

The speech was twice as long as it needed to be and contained a lot of extraneous material. Perhaps it was meant to inspire, but the delivery was flat. Judging by the footage of sleeping Cadets and weak applause I don’t think he reached his audience. It is hard to understand why this speech took weeks, even months to be written. And one is left wondering how long it will be until he decides to revise his war strategy yet again.


Napping Cadets [Jonah Goldberg]
Some readers think I was criticizing the West Point cadets for nodding off last night. Sure, I think it'd be better for everyone if they toothpicked-open their eyes like in the Loony Tunes, but criticism really wasn't my intent. Lord knows that after the kind of day they put up with, I'd be out like a light in a big warm auditorium.

Here's my Airpower guy:

Jonah,I wouldn't make too much of the dozing off. You probably did see one or two (or three) nodding. That's because they're in their natural state: exhaustion. Add to that preparing for mid-term finals, all that extra-curricular sports and military stuff, and listening to The One talk about something other than, you know, hammering the enemy and it's a deadly mix.Your Airpower Guy (Class of '76, similar school, higher elevation, further West)

I will say that if this had happened under Bush, Dana Milbank, Jacob Weisberg and Maureen Dowd would go into full-blown snark mode about it.

Fmr. VP Cheney calls out Obama - "Afraid to make a decision"

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/10/at-bush-administration-reunion-cheney-attacks-obama-again.html#



All I can say is, God Bless Dick Cheney !

Seriously ... that man is an accomplished and serious dude; and he has been unfairly vilified by the Dems and the Left and the Press.


His remarks effectively and articulately rebut the constant mis-information and bad policy actions emanating from the Obama Administration w/ respect to Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, National Security, Russia, Missile Defense and other areas; and he makes clear that Obama's attempts to blame the Bush Admin. for the current administrations mishandling and dithering over Afghanistan is largely their own doing.


Re: Cheney Last Night [Frank Gaffney]

Dick Cheney demonstrated last night before the Center for Security Policy audience that he is far and away the most competent, to say nothing of the most robust, statesman in the country today. His critique of Obama's conduct of foreign and national-security policies was both withering and absolutely on point. Now, we need those who are still in government to translate Cheney's admonitions and prescriptions into policy.

— Frank Gaffney is founder and president of the Center for Security Policy.

Voting "Present" in Afghanistan - O continues to dither

Or is Rahm Emmanuel in charge ?


Voting Present Is Not an Option [Victor Davis Hanson]

These are the facts in the Afghanistan troop debate:

(a) We have a Democratically controlled Congress that by and large has supported, since 2004, the Kerry-Obama-Hillary narrative of a “good” war in Afghanistan — a war shamefully neglected by George Bush during his neocon adventure in Iraq but absolutely vital to the security of the United States, and entirely winnable if only we allot sufficient resources.

(b) We have a proven command in Gens. McChrystal and Petraeus and their circle of subordinates. They crafted a counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq that defeated the terrorists, ensured stability for the fragile constitutional government, and took a tremendous toll on the human and material resources of al-Qaeda, as well as the reputation of radical Islam on the Middle East street.

(c) We have thousands of battle-hardened, experienced veteran soldiers and their officers who know far more about the Middle East in general, and counterinsurgency in particular, than our military knew when it first deployed to Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003.

(d) The Islamic world is much less in thrall (polls tell us this) to Osama bin Laden and his advocacy of suicide bombing and terrorism than it was five years ago. Pakistan, victim of numerous terrorist attacks, is far more willing to take concerted action that aids our cause than at any time in the last 8 years. And we have a president who by his own admission resonates abroad in a way not true of his predecessor, and who will receive a level of international support not usually accorded to American efforts in the Muslim world.

(e) The president has a domestic opposition — entirely unlike that of George Bush — that is eager to support him if he tries to fulfill his promise to win in Afghanistan by devoting more resources to the effort.

(f) We have media mesmerized by Obama, and they will withhold criticism of him in Afghanistan in a way that was simply not true of the Bush effort in Iraq (which nonetheless ultimately proved successful).

(g) We have a split public, but one far more amenable to a surge in Afghanistan than it was to a surge in Iraq late in 2006.(h) We should be bolstered by our success in Iraq, and the enemy demoralized by its failure, rather than vice versa.Given the above, and given that George Bush made a far more difficult choice that saved Iraq, it is hard to figure out why Obama cannot make a simple decision to send the troops requested by his commanders on the ground

Meanwhile O Dithers in Afghanistan; Flounders on Iran

AFGHANISTAN: Michael Yon

The War in Afghanistan Is Winnable [Michael Yon]

I respect the work of Dexter Filkins, who wrote this weekend’s New York Times Magazine story “Stanley McChrystal’s Long War.” Filkins is a seasoned war correspondent whose characterizations of Iraq ring true. Much of his latest piece resonates with my ongoing experiences in Afghanistan. Despite the great length of the article, the few points that did not resonate were more trivialities for discussion than disagreements. Filkins did a fine job.

To be clear, I have developed a strong belief that the war is winnable, though on current trends we will lose. Filkins seemed to present a similar argument. In my view, we need more troops and effort in Afghanistan — now — and our commitment must be intergenerational.

Keep reading this post . . .


'Gates Blindsided by Rahm' [Rich Lowry]

From Bill Kristol:

Yesterday, in light of Rahm Emanuel’s comments on delaying the decision on troops for Afghanistan, I asked: “Are Sunday talk show declarations by Emanuel and political advisor David Axelrod an appropriate way to announce the considered judgment of the president at this stage of a long Cabinet-level review process? Or is Emanuel end-running the process? Do Secretaries Gates and Clinton agree with Emanuel? Were they consulted before Rahm popped off?”

I’ve now been told by an authoritative source close to Defense Secretary Robert Gates that he had no advance warning that Emanuel would be saying any such thing.


IRAN:

Bolton: Obama’s ‘Virtual Reality’ [Robert Costa]

Former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton tells NRO that President Obama is living in a “virtual reality” if he believes that the talks this week in Vienna over Iran’s nuclear program will yield any significant results. The meetings, hosted by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), are aimed at convincing Iran to ship low-enriched uranium to Russia and France for more processing, in order to prevent Iran from enriching uranium on its own. “Obama’s intent for direct interaction is just read as weakness by Tehran,” says Bolton.

“President Obama doesn’t understand the nature of the regime he’s facing,” says Bolton. “He doesn’t understand the determination of the Iranians to get nuclear weapons, and he doesn’t understand the risk that a nuclear Iran poses to the region. On all three critical points, he fails.”

“The president, so intent on rejecting the eight years of Bush, is ignoring important history,” says Bolton. “On Iran, Bush policy is indistinguishable from Obama policy. They are both based on the idea of negotiations and threatening sanctions, all of which have failed for years. That strategy will not work now, either.”

Keep reading this post . . .


Romney Speaks Out on Iran [NRO Staff]

From the Washington Post:

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R) condemned the Obama Administration's approach toward Iran, a republic he described as "unalloyed evil" and controlled by "ruthless and fanatical" leaders in a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee today in San Diego.

"Stop thinking that a charm offensive will talk the Iranians out of their pursuit of nuclear weapons," said Romney. "It will not." Later in the address, he punctuated that sentiment by noting: "Once an outstretched hand is met with a clenched fist, it becomes a symbol of weakness and impotence."

Romney's speech comes on the same day that negotiators from the United States, France and Russia meet with Iranian officials in Vienna to discuss the country's controversial nuclear program.

More here.

Obama vs. the Military over Afghanistan

Obama continues to dither, letting stupid leftist politics trump policy.

If you had to choose between McChrystal / Petraeus plan, or a so-called "Biden Plan" (roflmao), what would you choose ?!


Charles Krauthammer On the developing rift between Gen. McChrystal and the Obama administration on Afghanistan:

We are looking at a crisis of military-civilian relations. McChrystal was in London. He was asked a question specifically about a plan that is almost identical to what the Biden proposal is, and he said, as we saw in that clip, do you think it will work?

No.

Will you support it?

No.

Now that is really near the edge of pressure on the White House. Now, McChrystal may or may not have had a hand in the leak of the original report, but what he said today is a challenge.

Now, Newsweek reports that he has said that if he is given a different strategy, he will not resign. I'm not sure I believe that. I understand why he would say it. If he were to say otherwise today, it would look like a threat and a kind of blackmail. But I cannot imagine that if his plan is rejected and if he is ordered to proceed on a plan which he has said now in public in London cannot succeed – how, in good honor, could he send his troops into battle with a plan [he says] would fail?

I think he would resign. And that would be a crisis for the Obama administration.


Can This Relationship Be Saved? [NRO Staff]
London Telegraph:

According to sources close to the administration, Gen McChrystal shocked and angered presidential advisers with the bluntness of a speech given in London last week.
The next day he was summoned to an awkward 25-minute face-to-face meeting on board Air Force One on the tarmac in Copenhagen, where the president had arrived to tout Chicago's unsuccessful Olympic bid. . . .

An adviser to the administration said: "People aren't sure whether McChrystal is being naïve or an upstart. To my mind he doesn't seem ready for this Washington hard-ball and is just speaking his mind too plainly."

In London, Gen McChrystal, who heads the 68,000 US troops in Afghanistan as well as the 100,000 Nato forces, flatly rejected proposals to switch to a strategy more reliant on drone missile strikes and special forces operations against al-Qaeda.

He told the Institute of International and Strategic Studies that the formula, which is favoured by Vice-President Joe Biden, would lead to "Chaos-istan".


Where's Petraeus? [NRO Staff]
New York Times:

WASHINGTON — Gen. David H. Petraeus, the face of the Iraq troop surge and a favorite of former President George W. Bush, spoke up or was called upon by President Obama “several times” during the big Afghanistan strategy session in the Situation Room last week, one participant says, and will be back for two more meetings this week. . . .

But the general’s closest associates say that underneath the surface of good relations, the celebrity commander faces a new reality in Mr. Obama’s White House: He is still at the table, but in a very different seat. . . .

The change has fueled speculation in Washington about whether General Petraeus might seek the presidency in 2012. His advisers say that it is absurd — but in immediate policy terms, it means there is one less visible advocate for the military in the administration’s debate over whether to send up to 40,000 additional troops to Afghanistan.

General Petraeus’s aides now privately call him “Dave the Dull,” and say he has largely muzzled himself from the fierce public debate about the war to avoid antagonizing the White House, which does not want pressure from military superstars and is wary of the general’s ambitions in particular.

Obama smacked down as he dithers on Afghanistan

Krauthammer says:


On the political consequences of Obama’s indecisiveness:

I'm not sure it's a political problem. I think it's a problem of what it does to the morale of the military and of the commanders in the field.

You are in the middle of a war and you have an urgent request — this is not just a general but an urgent request. And the logic here — it is all spelled out in a sentence or two; it is not a difficult proposition — the logic is we're in a downward spiral. The enemy is gaining. We can stop them with American troops.

Once they are stopped and the spiral is reversed, as happened in Iraq as a result of the surge, then the Afghan army can, in principle, at least, take over, as happened in Iraq. That's the idea.

You either can act on that or not. It's not a complicated idea. Obama is not stalling because he's studying all this. Obama is stalling because a) he doesn't know and b) he doesn't want to go politically against his own party.

That's when the McChrystal report was sent to Washington. That is three weeks ago. Obama has had a single meeting [onI'm announcing a comprehensive new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan."without a strategy. that report] since then.

He says he hasn't reached a conclusion — I suppose because he is spending all his time preparing for Letterman and speeches to schoolchildren — to focus on a war in which our soldiers are in the field getting shot at and, as the president himself is saying, without a strategy.

Now, the other date is the 27th of March, when Obama gave a speech in the White House flanked by his Secretaries of Defense and State, in which he said, and I will read you this, because it is as if it never happened, "Today I'm announcing a comprehensive new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan."

So we for six months have been living under the new Obama strategy, of which he says today we have none. And his next sentence is, again in March, "This marks the conclusion of a careful policy review" — not the beginning, the end of the policy review.

So it has been his policy, and now he tells us we don't have a cart and we don't have a horse.

What's happening here is he announced the strategy of counterinsurgency in March. He said at the time that we “cannot afford” an “Afghanistan that slides [back] into chaos.”

He said "My message to the terrorists who oppose us — We will defeat you," And now he's not sure he wants to defeat them.


On the political consequences of Obama’s indecisiveness:

I'm not sure it's a political problem. I think it's a problem of what it does to the morale of the military and of the commanders in the field.

You are in the middle of a war and you have an urgent request — this is not just a general but an urgent request. And the logic here — it is all spelled out in a sentence or two; it is not a difficult proposition — the logic is we're in a downward spiral. The enemy is gaining. We can stop them with American troops.

Once they are stopped and the spiral is reversed, as happened in Iraq as a result of the surge, then the Afghan army can, in principle, at least, take over, as happened in Iraq. That's the idea.

You either can act on that or not. It's not a complicated idea. Obama is not stalling because he's studying all this. Obama is stalling because a) he doesn't know and b) he doesn't want to go politically against his own party.


'He will destroy the Democratic party' [Rich Lowry]

This Washington Post story captures the stark divide over Afghanistan, with a unified military command on the one side — including McChrystal, Mullen, and Petraeus — and a president who is not sure he wants to follow through on "the counterinsurgency strategy he set in motion six months ago" on the other. There's this anonymous quote from one observer: "He can send more troops and it will be a disaster and he will destroy the Democratic party. Or he can send no more troops and it will be a disaster and the Republicans will say he lost the war."

Isn't this extraordinary?

Obama will roil the Democratic party by sending more troops to fight the war that Democrats have said for years is the "necessary war" (in Obama's words), the central war in the fight against terror, etc., etc. It's hard to imagine a starker demonstration of bad faith on an important issue of national security. I write about this today in my column. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton yesterday said Obama is getting "the exact opposite" advice from McChrystal than from other counterinsurgency experts. She doesn't say who these people are. The Post story says Obama is also getting "assessments from the State Department, the intelligence community, and his White House advisers." Are those people — the White House politicos in particular are very down on additional troops — going to trump the commanding general on the ground? We're going to find out.