Recently, I was chatting with a buddy and we were discussing Obama and Afghanistan.  As if Obama hasn’t had enough on his plate cleaning up the steaming pile of fecal matter that was the George W. Bush administration, now he has to give his attention to the long-drawn out conflict in Afghanistan that has resulted in negligible gains over the past eight years.  Yes, at the on-set, the Taliban was routed, but we took our “eyes off the prize” for the sexier target of Iraq and Saddam’s nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, resulting in the Taliban reasserting itself and Afghanistan’s Western-supported government of Hamid Karzai on the verge of complete illegitimacy.  (Of course, the U.S. military’s penchant for attacking wedding parties and blowing up civilians isn’t exactly winning any hearts and minds on our end.)

Although once considered “the good war”, for the most part Afghanistan is now all but forgotten, and due to its extended status, polls show the efforts in Afghanistan losing favor with a majority of the American public.  So, what is President Obama to do?  A decision in March to send in more U.S. troops was met with criticism from conservative pundits, which is really no surprise.  Considering the celebratory antics thse Country Lasters recently reveled in last week regarding Chicago’s failed Olympic bid, these same conservatives must be furtively hoping for a rout of American troops in Afghanistan.  At the same time, conservatives are also pushing Obama- who has referred to Afghanistan as a “war of necessity”- to follow the unpopular option of sending in troop levels of 40,000 troops, all but guaranteeing an increased American presence for at least three more years.  Politically, I am wondering if the Republicans are pushing Obama to implement an unpopular Republican-favored policy, just so they could run against that in 2012:  “He did something that we encouraged him to do!  How can you support for a President who implements our unfavored policies?”

(more…)