More On Bob Woodward's Leak

It's no coincidence that less than 24 hours after the President went on multiple Sunday shows this weekend to give his Afghanistan overview, that the President is not going to throw more troops at a losing battle, comes this morning's Bob Woodward piece in the WaPo designed to clearly pressure him into doing just that.

Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal says emphatically: "Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near-term (next 12 months) -- while Afghan security capacity matures -- risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible."

His assessment was sent to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates on Aug. 30 and is now being reviewed by President Obama and his national security team.

McChrystal concludes the document's five-page Commander's Summary on a note of muted optimism: "While the situation is serious, success is still achievable."

But he repeatedly warns that without more forces and the rapid implementation of a genuine counterinsurgency strategy, defeat is likely. McChrystal describes an Afghan government riddled with corruption and an international force undermined by tactics that alienate civilians.

Here's the problem. Eight years in, we still do not have a realistic strategy for winning in Afghanistan. Hell, we don't even know what winning constitutes there. The Republicans and Democratic hawks just want to toss more troops at the problem until we win. That's actually a worse strategy that what we've been doing, which is "try to make do with what we have, only we don't know what to do."

This Woodward piece is a clear shot from the war hawks to cut the President's legs out from under him on Afghanistan. Indeed, Obama is already being attacked this morning for not having immediately made the decision to send in thousands of more American soldiers (from where, exactly?) based on that Aug. 30 report.

Or at least it may be thousands. It may be hundreds of thousands. We don't know, because McChrystal doesn't specify a number, because we don't have an overall strategy other than "shoot things until we win."

If we're still 12 months away from failure after eight years, then why are we still there?