Krauthammer on Obama and 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.

-Charles Krauthammer