Other than being the wrong gender to deliver these thoughts, Juliet's line seems to fit: "I have no joy of this contract tonight."
This mess could have been resolved in December of 2001 at Tora Bora had Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld not been fixated on Saddam Hussein and Iraq. Had bin Laden not been allowed to escape across the border into Pakistan, had American troops been sent to Afghanistan rather than into a massive ramp-up for an unjustified war against Iraq, and had there been some Congressional pushback from the Republican side (Bush was not going to listen to Democrats), the action the President proposed last night would probably not be necessary.
As it is, I don't see what else he could have done. Had he just said "we're pulling out tomorrow" I think the region would soon devolve into an even more unstable state than it is now. President Karzai of Afghanistan and President Zardari of Pakistan would be perceived by their domestic opponents as dramatically weakened by America's withdrawal. If Karzai's government fell I'm not sure it would matter, but if Zardari were to be replaced there's a pretty good chance that whoever came into power would do so as a vocal foe of the United States. Since Pakistan has nukes and a rising Taliban problem of its own, that could be disastrous.
I really don't know what else Obama could have done.
Posted by Linkmeister at December 2, 2009 10:00 AM | TrackBack