I don't always agree with Rachel Maddow's assessment of President Obama's policies, but she is very much correct about her take on the President's post-Iraq plans for the Pentagon.
She reminds us that candidate Bush in 2000 ran against the Clinton administration's expensive and arrogant "nation-building", got elected, and less than one year after taking office had us embroiled in a war that lasted the rest of his administration (and then added another war on top of it a year and change later.) As she points out, it took President Obama to end the war in Iraq, wind down Afghanistan, and oh yeah, get bin Laden.
The President's new Pentagon policy, she adds, is prima facie evidence that the 9/11 military era is coming to a close. Counter-insurgency is now ninth on the list of Pentagon priorities, and large-scale stability operations like Iraq and Afghanistan aren't on the list at all.
In other words, the President is saying "I will not invade Iran. You guys can GTFO." It will be called appeasement when Iran comes up in this month's GOP Clown Car Debates (except for Ron Paul, who will complain that the President's Iran policy is economic suicide) but the reality is we're ending this long national nightmare, and none too soon.
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