President Announces Troop Surge to Afghanistan

Last night President Obama announced his much anticipated troop surge into Afghanistan in front of military cadets at the military academy at West Point. Pundits from both sides of the political spectrum will be critiquing his speech looking for flaws in his strategy. In difference to the president he was placed in a precarious situation by the Bush Administration that failed to properly fund or resource the war adequately.

President Obama laid out his strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan that will require substantial American troops to surge into Afghanistan. It will be many months before we will know if this new strategy is achieving the desired results and like the surge into Iraq, causalities will mount in the early stages of this comprehensive counterinsurgency strategy presented by the president.

The one area that the president will have to show resolve in the coming months will he have the staying power once the causalities begin to mount in the early stages of his surge plan. Whatever anyone says about President Bush is once the casualties mounted in the early stages of his Iraq surge, he maintained the strategy outlined by his commanders no matter the outcry of from his critics. Will the president have the same courage to do the same?

President Obama will face many critics of his Afghan strategy especially in the early going and all of this will be in the guise of partisan politics with a single eye to the mid-term elections. The president must stay above the fray and think only in how this affects the nation’s security interests in the region and its impact on U.S. national security.

His biggest challenge is selling this to the base of his party who are extremely skeptical on any troop surge and would rather focus on withdrawing forces from the region and focusing on issues at home. Democrats remember history as a guide when President Truman and President Johnson had conflicts that ended their ability to transform the economy at home.

Time will tell on how this conflict will end, but remember this both political parties better not use this for partisan political gains as the those who implement this strategy will remember this; meaning the armed forces of this nation!