ASAP is usually the way to go in matters of life and death. Dithering and being untrustworthy aren’t mutually exclusive.

You are right that Obama wants to get out of Afghanistan, but you are wrong about what the American people want. Of course no one wants us to be there, but reasonable people recognize that there is no good alternative for the time being. If voters wanted to get out now Obama would be getting us out now. It is precisely because Americans don’t want that that Obama is reinforcing our military presence in Afghanistan. The question is whether he will follow through.

BTW, it’s not the “Bush war.” It’s the American war. Americans, including the Congressional Democratic leadership, overwhelmingly supported our invasions of both Afghanistan and Iraq. Your memory is conveniently short on this point.

Am I the only one reading this fine blog who feels that this is comendable and am looking to see if his plan works? Or is much easier to sit back, sneer, and put down any and all attempts than are made by a president and party that won big on the national level??

Don’t be an ass. I said in the last sentence of my post that I hope that Obama will show resolve and do the right thing. But you won’t acknowledge that I wrote that, because doing so wouldn’t serve your rhetorical purpose of casting yourself as reasonable and me as unreasonable by comparison.

Obama wants to get out of Afghanistan. The American people want us out of Afghanistan (note how the GOP carps about our deficit for domestic needs but never for military needs), and we either do a Tough Love and force Afghanistan to stand on their own or we stay there (of course: not you and not me) and Enable the Afghanistan govt and people.

Obama is continuing the Bush war but he has now made it is own. He may decide to get us out after a time, but he seems to want to satisfy two ends: buying time to get Afghanistan ready (as happens in Iraq) do do the job for their own country
and also to get out of that trap.

Am I the only one reading this fine blog who feels that this is comendable and am looking to see if his plan works? Or is much easier to sit back, sneer, and put down any and all attempts than are made by a president and party that won big on the national level??

“That transition has to occur, I think we can all agree on, and a surge is a surge so it’s a reasonable time frame to achieve the effects that we want to achieve,” he says.

He also said, although I cannot find a link to those words, that the Iraq surge lasted 14 months before the troop levels began to decline. This is a similar timeline. If Obama begins to back away from the commitment, as I expect him to, Gates may start talking about leaving.

Personally, given the rules of engagement they have, I am in favor of just pulling out.

He could at least do what he isn’t doing now, namely make decisions faster and show resolve. Instead he’s triangulating: we’re sending more troops but we’re going to start withdrawing them next Wednesday. But who knows, maybe we’ll succeed in marginalizing radical Islam by then.