Of all things said as critique of the A-War speech, this rings truest (from Wall St. Jnl’s Kim Strassel):
President Obama missed a chance to win a war this week. Not the one in Afghanistan, but the one about Afghanistan with his party and the public. That political failure may yet undermine the real fighting.
The road to failure is paved with half measures.
Blithe Spirit 
Strassel: “The president’s reduced troop request and withdrawal timeline have meanwhile left easy openings for Republicans to later turn against him, if they choose to run from the war.”
“What Mr. Obama has in fact guaranteed is no reprieve from pressure to pull out. It will continue this year, and grow.
“This surge could take years to show results. Yet in 18 months Democrats will have been through—and likely lost seats in—a midterm election. Like Republicans in 2006, the temptation will be to blame that defeat not on their own controversial domestic governance, but on the war. Mr. Obama, diffident and apologetic, laboring under a self-imposed deadline, has left himself few tools with which to fight back.
“This window to rally public and congressional support hasn’t shut. Mr. Obama, no stranger to cameras, could still inspire the nation, and make clear to his party his commitment to Afghan success. It’s a war that needs winning now.”
What does Strassel’s phrase “Afghan success” mean? What, in her view, would count for success?
I could have sworn that we won the war in Aghanistan about eight years ago. But when you prosecute ill-defined, open-ended wars with impossible goals, like “bringing democracy” (with an American-style, centralized, mega-state) to people who have never had it, and who hate it, then you cannot help but lose. And for this, we’re supposed to pony up $1 trillion or so, and thousands of our finest young men?
Of course, for “Obama,” the choice is much different. He wants America to be humiliated and defeated, but not at the cost to his domestic, totalitarian ambitions. His concern is solely with timing.
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