by Charles Krauthammer
WASHINGTON -- We shall fight in the air, we shall fight on the landing
grounds, we shall fight in the fields, we shall fight in the hills --
for 18 months. Then we start packing for home.
We shall never surrender -- unless the war gets too expensive, in
which case, we shall quote Eisenhower on "the need to maintain balance
in and among national programs" and then insist that "we can't simply
afford to ignore the price of these wars."
The quotes are from President Obama's West Point speech
announcing the Afghanistan troop surge. What a strange speech it was --
a call to arms so ambivalent, so tentative, so defensive.
Which made his last-minute assertion of "resolve unwavering"
so hollow. It was meant to be stirring. It fell flat. In August, he
called Afghanistan "a war of necessity." On Tuesday night, he defined
"what's at stake" as "the common security of the world." The world, no
less. Yet, we begin leaving in July 2011? Does he think that such ambivalence is not heard by the Taliban, by
Afghan peasants deciding which side to choose, by Pakistani generals
hedging their bets, by NATO allies already with one foot out of
Afghanistan?