The Daily Background

The jolly off-to-war music they’re playing him out with seems wildly inappropriate for such a serious and somber speech. I think most every progressive goes into this very warily, and there wasn’t anything Obama could have said to dispel that wariness.

He made some fair points about Afghanistan not being Vietnam:

“Unlike Vietnam, we are joined by a broad coalition of 43 nations that recognizes the legitimacy of our action. Unlike Vietnam, we are not facing a broad-based popular insurgency. And most importantly, unlike Vietnam, the American people were viciously attacked from Afghanistan, and remain a target for those same extremists who are plotting along its border.”

That said, eight years into this war, that kind of talk only gets so far. And although Obama’s intentions are far nobler than were Bush’s with Iraq, I can’t say I have more confidence in this strategy “fixing” Afghanistan to the point it’s possible than I have in “fixing” Iraq to the point possible. At least he acknowledged that it’s important to evaluate what’s possible, which is endlessly more pragmatic than the old guys:

[T]here are those who oppose identifying a timeframe for our transition to Afghan responsibility. Indeed, some call for a more dramatic and open-ended escalation of our war effort – one that would commit us to a nation building project of up to a decade. I reject this course because it sets goals that are beyond what we can achieve at a reasonable cost, and what we need to achieve to secure our interests. Furthermore, the absence of a timeframe for transition would deny us any sense of urgency in working with the Afghan government. It must be clear that Afghans will have to take responsibility for their security, and that America has no interest in fighting an endless war in Afghanistan.

As President, I refuse to set goals that go beyond our responsibility, our means, our or interests. And I must weigh all of the challenges that our nation faces. I do not have the luxury of committing to just one.

It’s fair to point out that those words never would have spoken by Bush, who believed so ideologically in what he was doing that the only choices he ever considered were failure and complete, total and ultimate success.

This is the course he’s chosen and for the moment, we seem bound by it. I don’t know what more there is to say at this point.

Filed under: Z-TDB Blog