"Krauthammer's Take [NRO Staff] From last night's Fox News All-Stars."
On the strategy in Afghanistan:
"It isn't as if Afghanistan sprung up on [Obama] a week ago. It has been around for eight years. He has been running for president for two years on a promise to resource the war adequately, to look at it seriously, and to win it. That's what the Democrats had proposed.
"So it has been a serious issue for over two years. He says in March – he announces on March 27 – “there is a new comprehensive strategy,” so he has been thinking about this. And then he added, which is not often remembered, “this comes at the conclusion of a review.”
"Then he goes through all the people he consulted with [in that review]: the commanders on the ground, allies, NGOs and the governments in Afghanistan and Pakistan and members of Congress. It was a serious review in March.
"He appoints his own general later and then he says two months ago it is a war of necessity. You would think he has thought it through.
"And now all of a sudden he is rethinking it. It is because of the political pressure. The public opinion polls are going negative on him. He has gotten [resistance from] his left in the party, and it is all about the politics. It is not about the strategy.
"You have the best generals in the world – McChrystal on counterterrorism and Petraeus on counterinsurgency – the best in the world who know exactly how this is done and who conclude you cannot do a counterterrorism strategy, only counterinsurgency.
"And all of a sudden he is relying on Biden, Rahm Emanuel, and himself to go against the advice of these experts? Hard to believe..."
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