He should stick to domestic policy .
Foreign policy isn't his strong suit.
However, do you agree with my point about how McCain/Petreus/Bush haven't addressed how we can deal with the growing violence in Afghanistan, a country that Petreus and Crocker admitted to be a graver threat to us than Iraq? To me, Biden presented Obama with the holy grail when Petreus and Crocker made that admission: where do we get the troops to fight against the increasingly powerful Taliban in Afghanistan? Iraq could be where we get those troops.
At this point I would think we should get more NATO involvement in Afganistan .
We have a growing problem over there but we cannot jeopardize the gains in Iraq , hence if Gen. David Peatreaus and the military commanders don't advocate for the position you have then I can't recommend it .
There is no doubt Iraq is consuming a lot of our resources
Obama may be able to get more out of NATO. A new administration would get a fresh look from the Europeans.
if we have to wait for NATO to get pushed by Obama in his adminstration. I was shocked to hear that the Taliban was surging in Afghanistan and if one of the reasons is that we do not have a sufficient troop presence in Afghanistan, don't we need to do something about this situation now before Al Qaeda and the Taliban get an even stronger foothold in the country.
Petreus, Bush, and McCain need to answer the question as to where we can get the troops to fight what Petreus admitted was a graver threat in Afghanistan.
It's not just the troop levels. Our 'mission' has come in for a lot of criticism from our allies. The British know their way around the battlefield pretty well and a few months ago were making public complaints at the command level about our air-strikes and special forces hardening local opinion against the NATO mission there.
Sometimes I think we just don't do counter-insurgency warfare very well. Maybe it is too complicated for us or something. In an environment where the white hats and the black hats are not clearly obvious we seem to have a tendency to declare war on everybody.
I think Petreus should consider flipping himself. The media really didn't make that big of a deal about the Biden question at the time, but I thought that was the seminal moment of the hearings. In no way can we let the Taliban and Al Qaeda gain even a comftorable foothold in Afghanistan.
From the sounds of things, the Taliban has had its own "surge" and our troop presence there might not be able to hold them back with as much efficiency. Petreus/Bush/McCain haven't answered the question Obama raised about where will we find the troops to send into Afghanistan. I think Obama can make a compelling argument that Iraq is the best place to find such troops.
You and I disagree strongly on this exact point. Then again foreign policy isn't exactly the strong suit of American conventional wisdom, either, is it? Maybe after a couple of generations of a revitalised Peace Corps things will improve. At present it seems we have geopolitics confused with the popular board-game Risk.
Shaun , you and I have had this disagreement for over a year now .
You have to admit Obama isn't exactly singing the same tune as he was on a lot of these foreign policy positions that you find attractive.
I could argue he is much more in line with my position than yours lol.
Well, unsurprisingly I don't see it that way. I have been watching pretty closely, as have you, and it is interesting how we both feel our respective positions are reinforced by the same outcomes. My litmus test for Obama's foreign policy has been his dealing with issues relating to Israel, and AIPAC, and I condone some of his careful positioning there. The same applies to Iraq, but even the bill he authored early last year had caveats on the subject of deference to military opinion. The difference is that military opinion in an Obama administration would be based on a mission of ending the war, not continuing it.
Obama's position on Afghanistan has been consistent and, from my perspective, completely vindicated by the events of the last year, surge or no surge.
I'll vouch for Shaun, lori. He was never as far from your position as you may have assumed. It was one of the frustrating aspects of arguing with him in the primary, he was always clearly aware of Obama's position but careful with how he presented it.
