Ken Nelson

Current Obameter:  Carteresque

Over the past couple of weeks President Obama has shown that he is a slave to his campaign promises only when they can do the most harm to our national interests. Nothing shows this more than his policy directions in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Let’s remember, first, the goals of our invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. The highest level goal, applying to both military actions, was the removal of national support for terrorist activities. In the case of Afghanistan, the Taliban permitting terrorist camps to operate simply could not be allowed.  In the case of Iraq,  we had generally agreed on intelligence that Iraq had biological/chemical weapons and was near to acquiring nuclear capability.  Not touted, but the actual primary purpose of the invasion, was that we needed a land base suitable for finishing the encirclement of Iran.  Iran is a national sponsor of terrorism and is actively seeking nuclear weapons and a means to deliver them regionally.

To re-cap… no terrorists operating from Afghanistan, no WMDs in Iraq and encircle/contain Iran.

Sounds good right?  You would like that wouldn’t you?

Guess what… We have all three now.

But what will we have when President Obama finishes his recently stated policy changes of 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan and complete withdrawal from Iraq?

With 30,000 more troops in Afghanistan, we will have a lot more casualties, that will achieve nothing more than we already have. We do not need to create civilization in Afghanistan.  It may be possible, at at great cost, but even then we have nothing more in terms of our security than we have now.  Pounding terrorist camps from the air, should they spring up, is all we need to do to maintain this security.

By withdrawing from Iraq, we rely on a new and easily destabilized “ally” to act as our containment shield against Iran.  This seems likely to fail as the Shiites that share so much with Iran, naturally gravitate towards them.   When our departure is finished and we have no effective containment/threat to Iran, then Obama will have wasted thousands of our soldier’s deaths and billions in treasure, by giving away the strategic advantage we have by having finished the encirclement and containment of the rogue regime in Iran.

Re-cap: Afghanistan, doing more then needed means more casualties and no gain in security.  Giving Iraq to Iran by withdraw of our forces wastes the efforts of millions and removes a keystone of our national security.

I think Obama knows this. Gates surely is telling him this.  These two actions are an acid test of him.  Is he a rung climbing Chicago politician who got lucky?  Or is he Abe Lincoln?  He says he wants to be “Abe”. Time will tell, but for now, he seems a lot closer to Jimmy Carter than Abe Lincoln.