Cause and effect
The Washington Post reported on President Obama’s speech at the UN and said this:
It was only a few months ago that the president announced a new strategy for Afghanistan; McChrystal was installed to implement that effort. Now, in the wake of reports that the general wants more troops, administration officials suggest that another strategy may be needed. They cite a new set of conditions, including the messy aftermath of the recent election in Afghanistan, as a cause for reassessment…
When he was running for president, Obama found the war in Afghanistan a convenient policy foil for his opposition to the Iraq conflict, though one to which he seemed genuinely committed. Opposed to the war in Iraq, he was able to demonstrate muscularity on foreign policy by arguing that Iraq was consuming resources better focused on Afghanistan.
Now, some Obama advisers hear echoes of Vietnam in the military’s call for more troops and more time before the mission in Afghanistan can be expected to succeed. Meanwhile, outside pressure has built for Obama to listen to the generals and not to waver in his commitment of the forces they say are needed to defeat al-Qaeda…
At the United Nations on Wednesday, Obama sought to rally the world to act on challenges as diverse as the economy, nuclear proliferation and the environment. But Afghanistan is an example of how the United States must set its own course before other countries will follow.
The Post is right. Afghanistan is a real problem for this administration (as it would be for a Republican administration at this point), but it is a compound problem since Obama clearly articulated his administration’s new strategy as recently as March. It remains to be seen how effective Obama’s high-minded speeches will be in a world of Afghanistans, seemingly proliferating terrorist plots, and an emboldened, proto-nuclear Iran.