Afghanistan Strategy

Andrew Sullivan on President Obama rejecting the war options for Afghanistan: "What strikes me about this is the enormous self-confidence this reveals. Here is a young president, prepared to allow himself to be portrayed as 'weak' or 'dithering' in the slow and meticulous arrival at public policy. He is trusting the reality to help expose what we need to do. He is allowing the debate -- however messy and confusing and emotional -- to take its time and reveal the real choices in front of us. This is politically risky, of course. Those who treat politics as a contact-sport, whose insistence is on the 'game' of who wins which news cycle, or who can spin each moment in a political storm as a harbinger of whatever, will pounce and shriek and try to bounce the president into a decision. And those who believe that what matters in war is charging ahead regardless at all times will also grandstand against the president's insistence on prudence."