When President Obama announced back in 2009 that he was sending 33,000 surge troops into Afghanistan, he also promised to pull them all out by 2012. So in a speech last night from the White House, Mr. Obama kept his word by announcing that following his original plan is exactly what he intends to do.
Saying that the “tide of war is receding,” Mr. Obama ordered the rapid withdrawal of all 33,000 “surge” troops he sent to Afghanistan to fight a necessary battle against the forces of Al Qaeda. About 10,000 troops will be brought home by the end of this year, with the remainder to be home by the end of summer, 2012. The president is trumpeting huge successes during the last 2 years in Afghanistan by sticking to his original plan, saying we can now draw down U.S. troops “from a position of strength” after an intensive counterinsurgency effort.
“We have put Al Qaeda on a path to defeat,” he said, referring to the successful capture and killing of Osama bin Laden as a means for the withdrawal.
Although he acknowledged that some U.S. troops must remain in Afghanistan at least another 3 years for stability, Mr. Obama was sure to emphasize that the door is closing on a decade of war. “It is time to focus on nation-building here at home,” he said. “These long wars will come to a responsible end.”
<span>Re: Pres. Obama's *way*, if you will, of "Leading From Behind" Andrew Sullivan wrote: This is temperamental conservatism as Burke would understand it. You peruse the existing intimations, to use Oakeshott's formula. You guide what's emerging; you do not impose an ideological vision – like Paul Ryan's. Again this is why an old school conservative can see a lot of good in Obama. Compare his handling of Iraq and Afghanistan with Bush's. Bush was pure ideology and achieved modest results only when he dropped the ideology and addressed reality in 2006. Obama has been almost pure pragmatism – militarily and politically – on both. David Remnick says that Obama believes that "the price of getting too far ahead of the majority of the country would be politically ruinous and lead to the election of a conservative Republican": At a fundraising dinner in 2008, in Montclair, New Jersey, Obama told one of his favorite stories about F.D.R. (He told the story apropos of the Israeli-Arab dispute, but it also pertains to gay marriage.) Obama recounted how when F.D.R. was confronted by the civil-rights leader A. Philip Randolph about the racial injustices in the country and the need for the President to use his powers and his bully pulpit, F.D.R. said he agreed but he would only take action when he was forced to do so by a popular movement. “Make me do it,” he told Randolph. [….]</span><span></span><span>The American people tend to be a very fickled and reactionary people. Can't say that I don't understand the thinking AND Leadership style of F.D.R. OR Obama with respect to acting on "the will of the majority." </span><span></span><span>But I can't say that I'm a fan of that form of "Leadership" (Leading From Behind) either. </span>