Obama and Afghanistan

At my Amherst reunion, Robert McCartney, a columnist from the Washington Post, delivered a talk entitled, “America in Decline.” He was excellent. If I get a chance in the not-too-distant future, I will try to summarize his arguments and indicate why I think his “no, we are not in decline” is less convincing than his “yes, we are in decline.”

But after the session, I briefly met with him and asked if Obama’s Afghanistan position reflected his real views or whether he has made such a big deal of Afghanistan because he was arguing that we have to take the troops out of Iraq and wanted to avoid being seen as a wimp. McCartney’s immediate response was: the second. But then he qualified it by saying that he is not doing anything other than what he indicated he would do when he campaigned. On that, I agree. But I also think that by indicating during the campaign he was taking our troops out of Iraq–and I think you had to listen carefully, because maybe he said he was taking our “combat” troops out of Iraq, which leaves a lot of troops still there–he probably needed to show his “masculinity,”–i.e., indicate he was not a coward (or wimp) and able to lead America bravely into wars, when needed. (If true, the problem is less Obama’s but our culture.)

But then, which do I consider worse? Is it worse that he feels that we can actually “win” in Afghanistan and even be taking troops out by next year or that he knows it is all pretense, but is doing it anyway because that is what is politically needed. I haven’t made up my mind on this.

McCartney did say that the chickens will come home to roost–my phrasing–next year when the troops will either have to be withdrawn, with nothing accomplished (or very little) or Obama will have to backtrack on his pledge to begin withdrawal. (I suspect there will be a withdrawal, but it will be so insignificant it will hardly be noticed.)