The DLC faux progressive view on Afghanistan is that liberals, progressives, and Democrats generally should just STFU and get with the program of supporting the president, whatever he decides to do about Afghanistan.
It's a position admirably summed up by Democratic "centrists" Will Marshall and Jim Arkedis back in October - that Democrats need to be militarily aggressive to succeed politically:
President Obama faces tough decisions on Afghanistan, but his party is on the hot seat too. Afghanistan is the first test since Vietnam of Democrats' collective ability to manage a major armed conflict. Just how to do that is the subject of an intense internal debate. However it is resolved, the party must avoid a convulsive split that would cast doubt on its ability to defend the country....
Whatever course he chooses, the President will need his party's understanding and support to succeed. If Democrats fall out over Afghanistan, he won't be able to sustain a coherent policy, and the public will likely lose confidence in the party's ability to manage the nation's security.
This would be a calamity for the country. And it could throw a lifeline to the Republicans, who would have a field day resurrecting the old bugaboo of Democrats as "soft on defense." Only recently have Democrats shed that image. A Democracy Corps poll found that the 40 year national security confidence gap that has dogged Democrats has substantially closed.
Michael Cohen at Democracy Arsenal points out that in fact the true tough choice and the true mark of strength would be to go against that tide of conventional Washington wisdom to reevaluate where the real interests of the country actually lie; and if they aren't tied intimately to the fate of Afghanistan, to withdraw the troops, no matter what President Obama said about that conflict during the primaries and the GE campaign:
But the funny [thing] about this kerfuffle is [the] notion that tough choices on national security involve sending more troops into harm's way. I would make the argument that military escalation is in some ways the easier choice - explaining why Afghanistan is not in the national interest or that the threat from al Qaeda really isn't the significant or that the generals are wrong about the need for more troops or that there are limitations on US military power or that this really isn't a war of necessity - now that would actually represent a much more difficult political choice and a far more difficult argument. Doing the bidding of the generals is, in some respects, the more politically expedient choice, particularly when you don't have a groundswell of progressives pushing back on the feverish dreams of the COINdanistas.
Now obviously that would be a difficult choice politically but it would be the right one. To see why, consider al-Qaeda's stated strategy of the "management of savagery":
Among the most cherished aspects of al-Qaeda's strategy is the 'management of savagery', which constitutes the title of an important jihadist manual - subtitled 'the most important stage through which the umma will pass' - propagated under the pseudonym 'Abu Bakr al-Naji' via the Internet beginning in 2004. In essence, the strategy calls for a war of attrition in which Muslims bleed and gradually enervate the United States and its allies by repeatedly drawing them into military conflict.27 Such designs raise the question of whether the United States, having intervened full-bloodedly in Afghanistan, will likewise occupy and attempt to reshape every underdeveloped country in which jihadists establish a presence. This sort of project would surely be impracticable. Yet given al-Qaeda's transnational cast and noted adaptability, jihadists under its influence will almost inevitably rise to political prominence elsewhere. In this light, it is unclear where US-led intervention might end, and how Washington could carry the burden of the Afghanistan precedent....
So, following the principles espoused for pursuing a counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan, must the US involve itself in nation building in every underdeveloped region of the world where the jihadists might find a safe haven? If so, Americans should reconcile themselves to having their own needs like health care, education, and infrastructure take a back seat for a very long time to the needs of out-of-the-way corners of the rest the world, as led by the nose by al Qaeda. Because that's the path the supporters of an escalation in Afghanistan are (unwittingly or not) arguing for.
A minimal US military presence focused strictly on counterterrorism and a long-term commitment to slow, patient non-military support for rebuilding civic life in Afghanistan as led and chosen by Afghans themselves is a much better course, both long and short term, IMO.
The escalation of troop levels may be merely a short-term maneuver to get to an exit strategy. If so I hope things turn out that way. As LBJ learned, and as President Obama may learn, escalating is the easy choice. Getting out, even when it's the right thing to do, is the tough one.