Obama: War President

On Tuesday, President Obama gave his long anticipated Afghanistan speech at the West Point Military Academy. The speech contained no real surprises, including the 30,000 more troops he will be sending into the country to help stabilize the country.

Obama's strategy contains three main goals. First, to "break the Taliban's momentum." Insurgents in Afghanistan have become more brazen in their attacks on NATO troops, and Obama hopes that by adding these troops in early 2010, and possibly those from other allied countries, we will be able to focus on protecting the Afghan people and training Afghan security forces. Second, to enhance Afghan civilian leadership, through a series of carrots and sticks, and infrastructure and to reduce corruption, violence, and trafficking. Third, to partner with Pakistan in order to remove the "cancer" of Al-Qeada in the region. Although this has always been a goal of US foreign policy, recent attacks by Al-Qeada on government facilities in Pakistan has made this goal much more plausible. These goals are by no means revolutionary, but they do set goalpost for our occupation of Afghanistan to end.

Obama went on to answer critics, on both the left and right, by saying that he is not willing to continue pouring resources into Afghanistan endlessly, but is also not willing to pack up and leave. He quoted President Eisenhower, saying we have a "need to maintain balance among national programs," and managed to link the cost of the war to the present state of the economy.

Obama is the commander in chief, and he has made it clear that he does not want to abandon the war that he called "the central front in the war on terror." However, he also acknowledge that Al-Qeada is a global ideology. He supports strengthening our national defenses and intelligence networks. He said that, in the future, our military must be "nimble and precise."

Obama has done what Obama does best. He has found a middle way. Actually, he found both ways. Obama has committed to winning the war in Afghanistan, at least to the extent that such a thing is possible, and he has expanded our radar to Somalia and Yemen, and other places where Al-Qeada is gaining support. Remember that before the surge in Iraq, when most Americans wanted our troops to come home, Republicans successfully argued that we owed Iraq "one last best chance," meaning that instead of abandoning that country, we should shift strategy and go all in, at least for one more hand. And what happened? Well, Iraq, while not a paradise, is in much better shape then it was in 2006. And that is basically what Obama is doing in Afghanistan. Although the situation there has deteriorated, Obama, and most Americans, believe in finishing what you start. We have not given Afghanistan our full attention at any point in the last eight years, and isn't it about time? To paraphrase Colin Powell, "we broke it, we bought it." There are no good answers left in Afghanistan, but Obama has put us on the best possible road, one equipped with plenty of off ramps.