Making The Rounds

Making the rounds this morning, pretty much a grand total of nobody is happy with the President's Afghanistan strategy this morning.

On the Left:

Taylor Marsh: "I’m just stunned at the lack of vision and the conflicting imperatives."

Big Tent Democrat: "July 2011 exit date? the force buildup will not even be complete until May 2010. This seems unrealistic, not to say dishonest. A mistake from the President imo."

Michael Stickings: "This is where liberal internationalism resembles neoconservatism. Obama is firmly committed to the pursuit of American hegemony, if less aggressively. I will continue to support him, given the alternatives, but there will be no radical transformation of American foreign policy during his presidency. It will be more of the same, just different, which means that the overall decline of the American Empire will continue."

John Aravosis: " In the end, I don't think the speech really changes anything, as Chris Matthews just said on TV, the right is still going to hate him, and the left is still going to be ticked that we're sending more troops."

Derrick Crowe: "Post-game, Rachel Maddow gets it totally wrong. The left is not appeased by this milquetoast mirage of an "exit date." Obama did not set an end date in this speech, period. I’m still angry. You?"

(More after the jump...)

From the middle:

Andrew Sullivan: "Here's the insistence on a limited commitment to keep the pressure on Pakistan to cooperate. It makes no sense to me. Why would they not wait for us to leave? And if we recommit now, won't that take the pressure off the Pakistani and Afghan governments?"

Jerry Remmers: "At first blush, I think Obama is too optimistic. He’s overlooking the deep-rooted corruption in the Afghan government, underplaying the increased presence of American troops as a symbol of foreign occupiers and praying the Afghan army and police can be trained to protect themselves."

Tom Maguire:  "How did you love the speech?  I liked the George Bush passages on American exceptionalism the best; yes, Obama was achingly phony, but I figure he was even more annoying to lefties."

On the Right:

Paul Mirengoff:  "Indeed, Obama's timetable threatens to undermine not just the first prong of his strategy (military) but also second and third prongs (civilian and Pakistan). With only a short-term commitment, we're not likely to exert much influence on civilian behavior. Nor are the Pakistanis likely to be impressed by an America that's more interested in a prompt exit, so it can save money and focus on domestic issues (points Obama emphasized near the end of his speech), than in defeating its enemies."

Fred Barnes: "Americans and our allies were looking for more, I believe. To have rallied the country and the world, Obama needed to indicate he would lead a fight to win in Afghanistan, with the help of allies if possible, but with the armed forces of the U.S. alone if necessary. He didn’t say anything like that. He didn’t come close."

Bill Kristol:  "There were unfortunate aspects of Obama’s speech: the foolish eagerness to tell us he’s as eager as can be to get us out of Afghanistan as soon as he can; the laying down of a pseudo-deadline for beginning a process of transitioning our forces out in July 2011, combined with the claim that the pace and duration of the withdrawal is to be conditions-based – a typical example of Obama trying to be too cute by half."

Jennifer Rubin: "Obama is going to need to rely on conservative support to prosecute the war since his own crowd certainly won’t be cheerleading for him. So it would have been politically smart and classy to have credited Bush with the surge or with leaving him the assessment for the Afghanistan war, which he relied on in the spring (the one his team previously denied receiving). But that’s not this president’s style."

Dan Riehl: "Frankly, Obama isn't sending more troops off with the straight-forward objective of winning. He is sending them off with a time-line to fulfill. I fear this marriage between commander and troops will not end well for anyone, not the troops, not Obama and not the United States, or Afghanistan. If so, it will prove a bitter pill for all to swallow in the end. But there should be no confusion, now. This is Obama's plan, Afghanistan is now Obama's war just as surely as it ever belonged to President Bush."

For the record, I agree with John Aravosis and Jerry Remmers the most out of that batch, but as much as it pains me to say it, Dan Riehl also has a very good point.  This is now Obama's war.  He's splitting the difference, and nobody's happy about it.  As I said last night the emphasis on Pakistan and Karzai's legitimacy is a marked improvement, but the point is we need to be out of there.  30,000 troops will not win us the war, and if all we're doing is saving face before we can find the exit, then we're wasting money, lives, and credibility for no reason.

Bring them home.