While I intend to vote for Obama again in 2012, I think, this is a mistake.

Weakness is provocative, to quote the former Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld. And that is very true here -retreat and an enemy will attack or feel more confident to do so in the future. Osama bin Laden was "inspired" by our retreats from Lebanon during Reagan and our withdrawal from Somalia under Clinton.

Who else are we "inspiring" as we wind down in Afghanistan, especially in a war that's cause was just (remember, unlike Iraq, Afghanistan was harboring al Qaeda, so true was this that every country from France to Russia, even Iran, supported our efforts there)?

I could care less what Obama's motives are, to be frank, bad policy is bad policy.

and all for politics...from the man who promised the american people he was not a political player....he was different..

uh huh.......

what a scam...

letting go of those senior taliban guys in gitmo is trouble...they'll make all this fanfare from an agreement, and then once troops leave and these gitmo guys flee qatar, you can bank it...the taliban will be back into all sorts of anti american plots...forget AQ....they are just a name...its all part of the same anti western jihad...

boy is obama a smove operator...and the american people are going to pay the bill for years as a result.

After ten long years of Afghan war fueled by America’s own ally Pakistan, US is ready to throw in the towel and leave Afghanistan to Pakistan’s mercy.

Obama administration may backtrack a little to mollify some agitated US Senator/Congressmen but is ready to conclude a Vietnam-style peace deal as dictated by Pakistan with Afghan Taliban leaders chosen by Pakistan. US will begin its drawdown and finally exit the theater of a war it is desperate not to be seen as having lost, not so much to the Taliban and Al Qaeda as to the wily Generals of Rawalpindi who have proved to be smarter than the Americans.

That facade of peace will crumble within few years after the departure of US troops and Pakistan will bring Afghanistan under its suzerainty with reimposition of Taliban rule just as it did in 1996 while tired and financially broke Uncle Sam will helplessly look the other way just as it did in 1975.

The only downside I see is the economic impact ofour troops leaving Afghanistan will be that of the local nationals that work on the FOBS. Our men and women have been there way too long. We got our man, the Taliban now has offices in Qatar. If we stay in an advisory and peacekeeping role I can't see how it would affect the Presidents chance for re-election.

I have worked there as a contractor so I know it will cost many jobs all the way down the line. However, war should not be a fail safe method for boosting the economy.

The only way the Taliban can be defeated is by invading Pakistan and no one is recommending we do that.

The only way the Taliban can be defeated is by invading Pakistan and no one is recommending we do that.

eom

Well, thanks, Michael A Cohen, for reminding us that the president of the United States is a black man. I wonder how you'd describe a story that starts out reminding readers that the prime minister of Israel is Jewish?

The rest of this odd piece seems aimed at reminding us that if the Panetta remarks have been correctly understood -- a controversial issue -- Mr Obama follows in the path of Republican former army general Dwight Eisenhower in campaigning on bringing the boys home. This rather squalid Cohen piece bypasses any examination of the morality of stopping the killing in Afghanistan, and seems not to mention the American dying there at all. We are left to gape at his knowledge of the word "saliency". He can spell it. He doesn't know what it means.

a good read for the anti's...

Three Middle East Myths Exploded

First it was the myth about linkage between Iran and Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking.

According to the logic, without progress on the Palestinian front, it would be impossible to mobilize Arab countries to face the Iranian nuclear threat.

The notion had shelf life, sustained by some diplomats and the commentariat until it was blown out of the water by the WikiLeaks revelations.

Of course, it was no secret that Arab leaders feared Iran’s growing power and made not the slightest connection between the two issues. Anyone who met with an Arab official from Riyadh to Rabat heard the same dread about the looming prospect of a nuclear-armed Shiite theocracy in Tehran.

But in today’s world, facts don’t necessarily have any claim on fiction, until they become so incontrovertible that there’s no easy way around them.

And that’s just what WikiLeaks proved.

Lo and behold, the cables revealed that from Saudi Arabia to Bahrain, from the United Arab Emirates to Egypt, Arab leaders were imploring the United States to stiffen its spine and confront the Iranians. Linkage to the Palestinian question? Not even close. No mention whatsoever.

To the contrary, several Arab countries have looked to Israel, with or without a peace agreement, as a stealth ally in the face-off with Iran.

Another myth was about settlement-building in eastern Jerusalem.

According to that one, the peace process was going to wither on the vine and die because Israel indicated its intention to continue construction within Jewish neighborhoods.

Israel was criticized, pilloried, and pummeled for its actions, accused not only of being an obstacle to peace, but the obstacle. The reality on the ground seemed not to matter. The world was led to believe that the very future of the Middle East hinged on Israel’s alleged misbehavior.

Israel attempted to explain that both sides understood there would be border adjustments in a peace accord reflecting demographic realities on the ground, but this mattered not a whit. And it had even less success when it reminded the world that settlements, certainly an issue for negotiations, was by no means the only one – and certainly not a sufficient explanation for more than six decades of overwhelming Arab refusal to come to terms with Israel’s very right to exist.

Then came PaliLeaks, and the myth was blown out of the water.

The documents showed there was indeed tacit agreement on certain land swaps, including, yes, Jewish areas of eastern Jerusalem. The papers showed that the gap between the two sides was less than imagined, but, sadly, the uproar over the leaked documents proved that the Palestinian Authority has failed even to attempt to prepare its population for the concessions needed for an end of conflict and lasting peace.

And last it was the myth loudly stated by Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan that the root of all problems in the Middle East lies with Israel’s intransigence.

To accept the Turkish leader’s premise means throwing truth to the wind. Even a cursory study of the Arab world reveals deep-rooted problems having nothing to do with Israel and everything to do with political, economic, and social stasis. But that would have spoiled the appealing narrative.

After all, it is much more reassuring for the Erdogans of the world to lift responsibility from Arab shoulders and place it squarely on Israel’s! And for the Israel-bashers, of whom there is no shortage, anything suggesting Israeli culpability is greeted with endless expressions of glee and gratitude.

Who needs critical-thinking skills when criticism of Israel is so much more effortless and satisfying?

Yet this myth, too, has been exposed in recent weeks for all the world to see.

The streets of Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen filled with crowds rising up against domestic repression, the absence of opportunity, and the culture of cronyism and corruption.

Though none of the “after-the-fact experts” foresaw it, why, Erdogan aside, should that have come as a surprise?

All it took was a casual reading of the UN Arab Human Development Report, compiled by Arab scholars and published regularly by the world body, and other relevant material. I draw below from an article I wrote 13 months ago in The Huffington Postentitled “It’s not about Israel.”

They [the report’s authors] have spoken of three overarching explanatory factors for the region's unsatisfactory condition: the knowledge deficit, the gender deficit and the freedom deficit.

Unless these three areas are addressed in a sustained manner, the Middle East, which ought to be one of the world's most dynamic regions, is likely to continue suffering from instability, violence and fundamentalism, irrespective of what happens on the Israeli-Palestinian front.

Consider some of the important findings in recent Arab Human Development Reports and related studies:

• The total number of books translated into Arabic in the last 1,000 years is fewer than those translated into Spanish in one year.

• Greece -- with a population of fewer than 11 million -- translates five times as many books from abroad into Greek annually as the 22 Arab countries combined, with a total population of more than 300 million, translate into Arabic.

• According to a Council on Foreign Relations report, "In the 1950s, per-capita income in Egypt was similar to South Korea, whereas Egypt's per-capita income today is less than 20 percent of South Korea's. Saudi Arabia had a higher gross domestic product than Taiwan in the 1950s; today, it is about 50 percent of Taiwan's."

As Dr. A.B. Zahlan, a Palestinian physicist, has noted: "A regressive political culture is at the root of the Arab world's failure to fund scientific research or to sustain a vibrant, innovative community of scientists." He further asserted that "Egypt, in 1950, had more engineers than all of China." That is hardly the case today.

The UN Human Development Report reveals that only two Egyptians per million people were granted patents, compared to 30 in Greece and 35 in Israel (for Syria, the figure was zero).

Similarly, the adult literacy rate for women aged 15 and older was 43.6 percent in Egypt and 74 percent in Syria, while for the world's top 20 countries it was nearly 100 percent.

And finally, according to Freedom House rankings, no Arab country in the Middle East is listed as "free." Each is described as “partly free” at best, “not free” at worst.

The sad truth is that it is precisely political oppression, intellectual suffocation, and gender discrimination that explain, far more than any other factor, the chronic difficulties of the Middle East.

There exist no overnight or over-the-counter remedies for these maladies that would allow the region to unleash its vast potential, but one thing is clear: they, not the straw man of Israel, are at the heart of the problem.

It would be illusory to think otherwise.

The illusions, or myths, prevailed until the throngs in the Arab streets shattered them.

Like bowling pins, the myths keep falling. It remains to be seen whether they’ll be replaced by new ones, or, at long last, by a dose of reality.

more good stuff....

I was sitting in a lecture hall at a British university. Bored by the speaker, I began glancing around the hall. I noticed someone who looked quite familiar from an earlier academic incarnation. When the session ended, I introduced myself and wondered if, after years that could be counted in decades, he remembered me.

He said he did, at which point I commented that the years had been good to him. His response: “But you’ve changed a lot.”

“How so?” I asked with a degree of trepidation, knowing that, self-deception aside, being 60 isn’t quite the same as 30.

Looking me straight in the eye, he proclaimed, as others standing nearby listened in, “I read the things you write about Israel. I hate them. How can you defend that country? What happened to the good liberal boy I knew 30 years ago?”

I replied: “That good liberal boy hasn’t changed his view. Israel is a liberal cause, and I am proud to speak up for it.”

Yes, I’m proud to speak up for Israel. A recent trip once again reminded me why.

Sometimes, it’s the seemingly small things, the things that many may not even notice, or just take for granted, or perhaps deliberately ignore, lest it spoil their airtight thinking.

It’s the driving lesson in Jerusalem, with the student behind the wheel a devout Muslim woman, and the teacher an Israeli with a skullcap. To judge from media reports about endless inter-communal conflict, such a scene should be impossible. Yet, it was so mundane that no one, it seemed, other than me gave it a passing glance. It goes without saying that the same woman would not have had the luxury of driving lessons, much less with an Orthodox Jewish teacher, had she been living in Saudi Arabia.

It’s the two gay men walking hand-in-hand along the Tel Aviv beachfront. No one looked at them, and no one questioned their right to display their affection. Try repeating the same scene in some neighboring countries.

It’s the Friday crowd at a mosque in Jaffa. Muslims are free to enter as they please, to pray, to affirm their faith. The scene is repeated throughout Israel. Meanwhile, Christians in Iraq are targeted for death; Copts in Egypt face daily marginalization; Saudi Arabia bans any public display of Christianity; and Jews have been largely driven out of the Arab Middle East.

It’s the central bus station in Tel Aviv. There’s a free health clinic set up for the thousands of Africans who have entered Israel, some legally, others illegally. They are from Sudan, Eritrea, and elsewhere. They are Christians, Muslims, and animists. Clearly, they know something that Israel’s detractors, who rant and rave about alleged “racism,” don’t. They know that, if they’re lucky, they can make a new start in Israel. That’s why they bypass Arab countries along the way, fearing imprisonment or persecution. And while tiny Israel wonders how many such refugees it can absorb, Israeli medical professionals volunteer their time in the clinic.

It’s Save a Child’s Heart, another Israeli institution that doesn’t make it into the international media all that much, although it deserves a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize. Here, children in need of advanced cardiac care come, often below the radar. They arrive from Iraq, the West Bank, Gaza, and other Arab places. They receive world-class treatment. It’s free, offered by doctors and nurses who wish to assert their commitment to coexistence. Yet, these very same individuals know that, in many cases, their work will go unacknowledged. The families are fearful of admitting they sought help in Israel, even as, thanks to Israelis, their children have been given a new lease on life.

It’s the vibrancy of the Israeli debate on just about everything, including, centrally, the ongoing conflict with the Palestinians. The story goes that U.S. President Harry Truman met Israeli President Chaim Weizmann shortly after Israel’s establishment in 1948. They got into a discussion about who had the tougher job. Truman said: “With respect, I’m president of 140 million people.” Weizmann retorted: “True, but I’m president of one million presidents.”

Whether it’s the political parties, the Knesset, the media, civil society, or the street, Israelis are assertive, self-critical, and reflective of a wide range of viewpoints.

It’s the Israelis who are now planning the restoration of the Carmel Forest, after a deadly fire killed 44 people and destroyed 8,000 acres of exquisite nature. Israelis took an arid and barren land and, despite the unimaginably harsh conditions, lovingly planted one tree after another, so that Israel can justifiably claim today that it’s one of the few countries with more wooded land than it had a century ago.

It’s the Israelis who, with quiet resolve and courage, are determined to defend their small sliver of land against every conceivable threat – the growing Hamas arsenal in Gaza; the dangerous build-up of missiles by Hezbollah in Lebanon; nuclear-aspiring Iran’s calls for a world without Israel; Syria’s hospitality to Hamas leaders and transshipment of weapons to Hezbollah; and enemies that shamelessly use civilians as human shields. Or the global campaign to challenge Israel’s very legitimacy and right to self-defense; the bizarre anti-Zionist coalition between the radical left and Islamic extremists; the automatic numerical majority at the UN ready to endorse, at a moment’s notice, even the most far-fetched accusations against Israel; and those in the punditocracy unable – or unwilling – to grasp the immense strategic challenges facing Israel.

Yes, it’s those Israelis who, after burying 21 young people murdered by terrorists at a Tel Aviv discotheque, don the uniform of the Israeli armed forces to defend their country, and proclaim, in the next breath, that, “They won’t stop us from dancing, either.”

That’s the country I’m proud to stand up for. No, I’d never say Israel is perfect. It has its flaws and foibles. It’s made its share of mistakes. But, then again, so has every democratic, liberal and peace-seeking country I know, though few of them have faced existential challenges every day since their birth.

The perfect is the enemy of the good, it’s said. Israel is a good country. And seeing it up close, rather than through the filter of the BBC or The Guardian, never fails to remind me why.

and more....

Since writing “How can you defend Israel?” last month, I’ve(david harris) been deluged by comments. Some have been supportive, others harshly critical. The latter warrant closer examination.

The harsh criticism falls into two basic categories. One is over the top.

It ranges from denying Israel’s very right to nationhood, to ascribing to Israel responsibility for every global malady, to peddling vague, or not so vague, anti-Semitic tropes.

There’s no point in dwelling at length on card-carrying members of these schools of thought. They’re living on another planet.

Israel is a fact. That fact has been confirmed by the UN, which, in 1947, recommended the creation of a Jewish state. The UN admitted Israel to membership in 1949. The combination of ancient and modern links between Israel and the Jewish people is almost unprecedented in history. And Israel has contributed its share, and then some, to advancing humankind.

If there are those on a legitimacy kick, let them examine the credentials of some others in the region, created by Western mapmakers eager to protect their own interests and ensure friendly leaders in power.

Or let them consider the basis for legitimacy of many countries worldwide created by invasion, occupation, and conquest. Israel’s case beats them by a mile.

And if there are people out there who don’t like all Jews, frankly, it’s their problem, not mine. Are there Jewish scoundrels? You bet. Are there Christian, Muslim, atheist and agnostic scoundrels? No shortage. But are all members of any such community by definition scoundrels? Only if you’re an out-and-out bigot.

The other group of harsh critics assails Israeli policies, but generally tries to stop short of overt anti-Zionism or anti-Semitism. But many of these relentless critics, at the slightest opportunity, robotically repeat claims about Israel that are not factually correct.

There are a couple of methodological threads that run through their analysis.

The first is called confirmation bias. This is the habit of favoring information that confirms what you believe, whether it’s true or not, and ignoring the rest.

While Israel engages in a full-throttled debate on policies and strategies, rights and wrongs, do Israel’s fiercest critics do the same? Hardly.

Can the chorus of critics admit, for example, that the UN recommended the creation of two states – one Jewish, the other Arab – and that the Jews accepted the proposal, while the Arabs did not and launched a war?

Can they acknowledge that wars inevitably create refugee populations and lead to border adjustments in favor of the (attacked) victors?

Can they recognize that, when the West Bank and Gaza were in Arab hands until 1967, there was no move whatsoever toward Palestinian statehood?

Can they explain why Arafat launched a “second intifada” just as Israel and the U.S. were proposing a path-breaking two-state solution?

Or what the Hamas Charter says about the group’s goals?

Or what armed-to-the-teeth Hezbollah thinks of Israel’s right to exist?

Or how nuclear-weapons-aspiring Iran views Israel’s future?

Or why President Abbas rejected Prime Minister Olmert’s two-state plan, when the Palestinian chief negotiator himself admitted it would have given his side the equivalent of 100 percent of the West Bank?

Or why Palestinian leaders refuse to recognize the Western Wall or Rachel’s Tomb as Jewish sites, while demanding recognition of Muslim holy sites?

Or why Israel is expected to have an Arab minority, but a state of Palestine is not expected to have any Jewish minority?

Can they admit that, when Arab leaders are prepared to pursue peace with Israel rather than wage war, the results have been treaties, as the experiences of Egypt and Jordan show?

And can they own up to the fact that when it comes to liberal and democratic values in the region, no country comes remotely close to Israel, whatever its flaws, in protecting these rights?

Apropos, how many other countries in the Middle East – or beyond – would have tried and convicted an ex-president? This was the case, just last week, with Moshe Katsav, sending the message that no one is above the law – in a process, it should be noted, presided over by an Israeli Arab justice.

And if the harsh critics can’t acknowledge any of these points, what’s the explanation? Does their antipathy for Israel – and resultant confirmation bias – blind them to anything that might puncture their airtight thinking?

Then there is the other malady. It’s called reverse causality, or switching cause and effect.

Take the case of Gaza.

These critics focus only on Israel’s alleged actions against Gaza, as if they were the cause of the problem. In reality, they are the opposite – the effect.

When Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, it gave local residents their first chance in history – I repeat, in history – to govern themselves.

Neighboring Israel had only one concern – security. It wanted to ensure that whatever emerged in Gaza would not endanger Israelis. In fact, the more prosperous, stable, and peaceful Gaza became, the better for everyone. Tragically, Israel’s worst fears were realized. Rather than focus on Gaza’s construction, its leaders – Hamas since 2007 – preferred to contemplate Israel’s destruction. Missiles and mortars came raining down on southern Israel. Israel’s critics, though, were silent. Only when Israel could no longer tolerate the terror did the critics awaken – to focus on Israel’s reaction, not Gaza’s provocative action.

Yet, what would any other nation have done in Israel’s position?

Just imagine terrorists in power in British Columbia – and Washington State’s cities and towns being the regular targets of deadly projectiles. How long would it take for the U.S. to go in and try to put a stop to the terror attacks, and what kind of force would be used?

Or consider the security barrier.

It didn’t exist for nearly 40 years. Then it was built by Israel in response to a wave of deadly attacks originating in the West Bank, with well over 1000 Israeli fatalities (more than 40,000 Americans in proportional terms). Even so, Israel made clear that such barriers cannot only be erected, but also moved and ultimately dismantled.

Yet the outcry of Israel’s critics began not when Israelis were being killed in pizzerias, at Passover Seders, and on buses, but only when the barrier went up.

Another case of reverse causality – ignoring the cause entirely and focusing only on the effect, as if it were a stand-alone issue disconnected from anything else.

So, again, in answer to the question of my erstwhile British colleague, “How can you defend Israel?” I respond: Proudly.

In doing so, I am defending a liberal, democratic, and peace-seeking nation in a rough-and-tumble neighborhood, where liberalism, democracy, and peace are in woefully short supply.

the above were written by david harris....more from him below...oh so sweet....anti's will hate this one....

In the Trenches: To the chorus of chronic, compulsive critics of Israel

Posted by David Harris

You just can't contain your rage against Israel, can you?

A mere mention of Israel and you're out of the starting gate in record time with another tirade accusing it, and its defenders, of every conceivable evil in the world - from Nazism to Apartheid, from blood libel to mass murder.

The facts be damned - they only get in the way of your outrageous assertions and gross distortions. You follow the approach recommended by Lenin: "A lie told often enough becomes the truth."

Your narrative is pre-cooked, airtight and impervious to reason. It's filled with a hatred of Israel that eludes logical explanation, a blindness that shuts out any contrary evidence.

For you, Israel can do no right other than to close up shop and call it quits, while the Palestinians, your hallowed victims on a pedestal, can do no wrong.

Strikingly, all this is done in the name of such vaunted values as democracy, legitimacy and an end to occupation.

Yet you interpret and apply those values in rather strange ways.

Take democracy.

Israel is a democracy. Much as you may breathlessly try to dismiss the notion, it's a fact.

Israel has free and fair elections, smooth transfers of power and an independent judiciary. It has a wide array of political parties, a freewheeling parliament, including members who have openly cavorted with the country's enemies, and a feisty press. It has a well-developed civil society and countless human-rights and civil-rights groups. It protects freedom of worship for all. It has a vibrant gay community. It has strong labor unions. And minority communities enjoy legal protections.

No, Israel may not be perfect - and I would never suggest otherwise - but, then again, what democracy is, especially one so young and subjected to so many challenges to its very existence? But democracies, by their very nature, invite self-criticism and improvement.

Now take a look at Israel's neighborhood.

For all your purported concern about defending democracy - or freedom or human dignity - why is your voice on mute?

Could it be that your real ideal is a Hamas-run society, with its all-enveloping political and religious suffocation, relegation of women to the status of virtual male property, intimidation of the tiny Christian community, unadulterated anti-Semitism and reverence for the cult of violence?

If your world view is defined by the belief that Palestinians are mistreated, then why not a peep about their condition in, say, Lebanon?

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have lived in Lebanon for decades, yet by law they are excluded from working in dozens of professions, have no right to own property and have limited access to healthcare. Is this acceptable to you? Have you petitioned the Lebanese government to respect their human dignity? If so, please don't keep it a secret.

In fact, why not go a step further and expose the absurdity of a flotilla heading from Lebanon to Gaza to "assist" the Palestinians? Whatever happened to the notion that "charity begins at home"?

And, dare I ask, when was the last time you spoke out in protest against the treatment of women, gays, religious minorities, labor activists and human-rights defenders in the larger Middle East?

You talk about legitimacy, accusing Israel of being an "illegitimate" state.

Israel is an entirely legitimate state.

From the Balfour Declaration to the League of Nations Mandate, from the recommendation of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine to the overwhelming vote of the UN General Assembly, Israel's foundation is rock-solid. In fact, it's far stronger than that of most other countries.

And I'm not even invoking the Jewish people's ancient history and literature, and the findings of archaeology to support it, relevant though they are.

Not only is the nation entirely legitimate, but so is its government, a product of the periodic expression of the will of its people.

But if you're truly seized by questions of legitimacy, why not examine some of Israel's neighbors?

You'll discover a few uncomfortable truths.

First, their historical legitimacy is questionable, the result either of conquest or cynical European leaders drawing borders at will. And second - as in Syria, for instance - political legitimacy derives more from the bullet than the ballot, and from the entrenched notion of filial dynasties.

Either way, it doesn't do much for the legitimacy case.

And then there is the "end to occupation."

Since the 1967 war, Israel, unlike many nations victorious in battles of self-defense, has withdrawn from lands it seized.

It gave back to Egypt the vast Sinai region, with its oil fields and strategic depth, withdrew from Gaza and yielded to Jordan on border issues. It has also pulled all its troops out of southern Lebanon and dramatically lowered its profile in much of the West Bank. And it has repeatedly declared its readiness to embrace a far-reaching two-state solution with the Palestinians that would entail further territorial sacrifices.

Israel, so small that it's barely a speck on world maps, has one overriding preoccupation - security. Until the Palestinians finally get their act together and pursue peace seriously and credibly, Israel has every right to act against groups operating in Gaza and the West Bank that stockpile weapons and plot terrorist attacks.

Any other nation defending itself would act similarly - or, perhaps, more ruthlessly and with less regard for the well-being of civilians cynically used by enemies as human shields.

But those of you in the chorus of chronic, compulsive critics of Israel blithely ignore Israel's withdrawals to date and repeated offers of peace, instead robotically hammering away at the "evils of occupation" - by which you presumably mean Israel's very existence, irrespective of its borders.

Yet again revealing your rank hypocrisy, the chorus is strangely silent when it comes to other occupations.

Take, for instance, Cyprus. The island has been divided since 1974, there are tens of thousands of Turkish troops in the northern part, and it is an open secret that the Turkish government generously encourages thousands of settlers - yes, settlers - to move there from Turkey and shift the demographic balance.

Any chance that the chorus will speak up? It hasn't since 1974, and is unlikely to start now. After all, Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan has positioned himself as the champion of Hamas - and, for the chorus, that must be a dream come true. Why jeopardize it?

Winston Churchill faced his own chorus of chronic, compulsive critics who willfully tuned out obvious truths when he sought to alert the world to the great dangers of the 20th century.

He famously said: "Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened."

Sounds as if he had people like you in mind.

It's hard to make a case that the political future of Afghanistan matters very deeply to the US. Yes, if terrorists are operating there, they need to be swatted. But that's about it. We've learned how to do that with drone attacks (never mind the resentments that drone attacks and ignoring sovereignty cause). Al Queda will never again be in a position, in Afghanistan or elsewhere, to operate training camps or bases with impunity.

Too, nation building doesn't seem to work. Pouring vast sums of treasure, to say nothing of American lives, into standing up democratic and secular regimes has, in the case of Iraq, handed an enormous political and influence victory to Iran and left Iraq on the verge of the mother of all civil wars. No-one thinks the current Afghan government will be around very long after we pull out of Afghanistan, for that matter. Do I have to remind readers that nation-building didn't work in Viet Nam, either? Our nation-building track record is mostly one of failure and waste; the only real success we've had is South Korea, and that was a long time ago.

But why now? Pulling out of Afghanistan before the election will hurt Obama, won't it? Doesn't it make him appear to be weak?

Maybe not.

Look at it this way: if Obama, the Pentagon, and the State Department are convinced that Iran is determined to ignore sanctions (or retaliate for them) and proceed with its near-term plans to acquire nuclear weapons, then war with Iran is nearly certain. By pulling out of low-stakes Afghanistan early, Obama improves the Pentagon's flexibility against a high-stakes opponent *before* that opponent can deploy nukes.

So. Afghanistan will fight its own post-US occupation civil war, the corruption-riddled national government against the rabidly right-wing Taliban against militias and warlords and drug kingpins and proxies for Pakistan and proxies for India and who knows what else.

And we'll use our troops where it matters much more to our national security: the Persian Gulf and Iran. Has it escaped notice that we're building up forces in the region? And I don't just mean moving aircraft carriers around.

Obama is girding his loins. The early withdrawal from Afghanistan is part of that. It's a predictable move, actually; I am pounding my forehead that I didn't see it coming.

The only observation I'll add is that the pullout from Afghanistan might not be early enough.

The Iranian mullahs have much more control over how or whether a war will happen, and when, than Obama does.

If the sanctions truly bite deep in Iran, the mullahs may actually do what they said they'll do: attack oil tankers, which will strip the tankers of insurance and close the Strait to oil traffic until Iran withdraws the threat or is made incapable of making good on it. Closing the Strait to oil traffic will send the rest of the world into a hurt nearly as deep as the one we're inflicting on Iran. When will they do it? Will they politely wait until US forces are comfortably redeployed?

If I were Obama, I would be worrying that the Afghanistan pullout may not be happening soon enough.

Too many posters sem to be obsessed with the non-existant threat from Iran. The past and present heads of the Mossad state that Iran is not a threat, but it's pretty obvious that some of the posters here work at AIPAC or WINEP and continue to spew the LIkkudnik line that Iran is building Nukes.

It’s the Israelis who, with quiet resolve and courage, are determined to defend their small sliver of land against every conceivable threat – the growing Hamas arsenal in Gaza; the dangerous build-up of missiles by Hezbollah in Lebanon; nuclear-aspiring Iran’s calls for a world without Israel; Syria’s hospitality to Hamas leaders and transshipment of weapons to Hezbollah; and enemies that shamelessly use civilians as human shields. Or the global campaign to challenge Israel’s very legitimacy and right to self-defense; the bizarre anti-Zionist coalition between the radical left and Islamic extremists; the automatic numerical majority at the UN ready to endorse, at a moment’s notice, even the most far-fetched accusations against Israel; and those in the punditocracy unable – or unwilling – to grasp the immense strategic challenges facing Israel.

Yes, it’s those Israelis who, after burying 21 young people murdered by terrorists at a Tel Aviv discotheque, don the uniform of the Israeli armed forces to defend their country, and proclaim, in the next breath, that, “They won’t stop us from dancing, either.”

That’s the country I’m proud to stand up for. No, I’d never say Israel is perfect. It has its flaws and foibles. It’s made its share of mistakes. But, then again, so has every democratic, liberal and peace-seeking country I know, though few of them have faced existential challenges every porno videolar day since their birth.