President Obama, Afghan President Karzai, Vice President BidenFrom The Captain's Journal:
"Raising expectations for scaling back military operations in Afghanistan, President Barack Obama said Tuesday he hopes U.S. involvement can “transition to a different phase” after this summer’s Afghan elections.
The president said he is looking for an exit strategy where the Afghan security forces, courts and government take more responsibility for the country’s security. That would enable U.S. and other international military forces to play a smaller role".
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My Comment: The Captain's Journal's assessment is accurate. The reason why the Obama Administration is searching for an exit strategy is because President Obama's main focus is the domestic agenda .... not the foreign one. Wars like Afghanistan are just a distraction, one that I am sure he could wish away.
But before all of this is to happen, the war in Afghanistan is going to grind away into a stalemate, and with no leadership or direction from the top of the U.S. political establishment, we will be finding ourselves openly discussing our intentions to leave by next year. Such talk will start to escalate at the end of President Obama's third year, and at the beginning of the fourth year of his term, U.S. forces will start to depart ... or have already departed from Afghanistan.
The most important reason why .... President Obama cannot find himself in a situation (at the end of his four year term), in which U.S. forces are still dying and being wounded in the Afghan campaign. This will play hell with his political base, and will seriously put into question his ability to influence foreign policy goals and objectives. Money will also be short (if not already), and fighting a war as well as trying to "nation build" at the same time is (and will be) a very costly endeavor .... a fact that the voters will not ignore.
My prediction .... U.S. and NATO forces will start the withdrawal process in 2011/2012.
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