On Tuesday, President Barack Obama ordered an additional 17,000 U.S. troops into Afghanistan. I applaud him for sticking to his campaign promise despite the negative reaction this is generating among his most radical supporters. As a candidate, President Obama promised to remove troops from Iraq and ramp up efforts in Afghanistan, which he considered the battlefield where our troops were truly needed. At the time, I was not particular happy with Obama and his supporters because of their attempts to undermine the war effort in Iraq. President Obama had argued against the surge and continued to insist that the surge was too costly and ineffective even after its implementation accompanied a massive drop in violence. Could it have been a coincidence? Let’s be honest with ourselves… NO.

He has been remarkably less critical of the plan as of late. No doubt this change occurred when he realized that the surge had changed the game enough that he could accelerate the withdrawal from Iraq thereby meeting a campaign promise without the dishonor of defeat. Bush may have gotten us into the mess in the first place, but we’re not being honest with ourselves if we don’t acknowledge that he did a tremendous job in bringing it nearly to a peaceful conclusion. If we want to learn from both our mistakes and our successes, we have to objectively evaluate what worked and what didn’t, even if it does not agree with our particular world view.

Moving on from Iraq, I want to congratulate the President for his bold action in Afghanistan. He is quite right when he says that we need to win in Afghanistan:

Besides the implications of a resurgent Taliban to Afghanistan and our world image, we must consider the bigger picture. Don’t forget, the Taliban have a tremendous power base in Pakistan and, should they manage to regain Afghanistan, will control a significant piece of the middle east which borders Pakistan and Iran. The inevitable captured U.S. military hardware alone would make them quite a force.

I can already hear you, "so they have better guns, big deal." While you’re correct that weapons don’t make much of a difference, consider what type of warfare the Taliban excel at: infiltrating borders and guerrilla warfare. Now give this powerful guerrilla force the revenue of an entire country of Heroin exports, lots of surplus military hardware, and the manpower of a terrified population. Situation doesn’t look so simple anymore, does it? Now, consider what would happen if the Taliban, now in control of Afghanistan, use their power and shared borders to further destabilize Pakistan and obtain nuclear weapons…

Sadly, ending a war is not a simple black and white decision. While it might seem best to simply withdraw, it would have tremendously negative implications for our national security. Even more importantly, we do not have access to the intelligence that the president does. At least on this issue , we cannot insist that we know better. We need to see this fight through to a stable conclusion and kudos to Obama for committing to it despite his supporters rising chorus of dissatisfaction.

Hail to the chief!

Madas