Watching President Obama's speech last night, I came around to the position that with the escalation in Afghanistan, this is indeed his war now. That, after all, is the only excusable response.
Afghanistan is a war America can be forgiven for waging. It was, in 2001, and remains an essentially lawless territory and one from which we were attacked, at least according to the official version of the 9/11 story.
Afghanistan and Pakistan, along with the lawless tribal borderlands, are a tinderbox, and we have no choice but to maintain a presence there until we are able to leave behind something resembling a nation.
I'm the first to say we need to do nation-building right here at home, in Appalachia and elsewhere; and I was among those expressing my skepticism about Bush's original rationale for the war. I suspect that it was carried out in the name of expanding opportunities for American oil interests, and possibly both wars were little more than a way to funnel money to corporate and banking interests; but I don't think leaving that region to its own devices at this point makes the world a safer place. As Obama said last night, the other options just aren't thinkable. This has to be done regardless of how you or I feel about its origins.
Iraq is not a war that America can be forgiven for waging. We created a power vacuum in a volatile land between two historical enemies, and doing so resulted in the dilution of our power to succeed in Afghanistan, where we badly needed to succeed. Afghanistan may be Obama's war, now, but Iraq remains a Bush/GOP war of choice, and shutting down that operation ought to be the president's next order of business.
I suspect that the president ultimately decided that Afghanistan was a war that should have been waged, and should have been waged better. I suspect, also, that that's what he'll do now.
I have been skeptical of Obama since the campaign and the financial meltdown and his response to it almost left me without a shred of hope for his presidency. Last night, however, I saw a man deeply troubled by the bad choices he's stuck with making, and the seriousness of the setting and the tone of the speech were reassuring even if his message was one I didn't want to hear.