Vänstern besvikna att Obama håller sina vallöften

Hur kan man sammanfatta reaktionerna på Obamas Afghanistan-strategi, som presenterades i gårdagens tal?

Vänstern är besvikna att Obama håller sina vallöften. Den som missat att Obama ville prioritera om trupper från Irak till Afghanistan var antingen blind eller döv under 2007 och 2008.

Högern är i sin tur besvikna på att Obama, till skillnad från sin rivaliserande kandidat John McCain, inte uttrycker en vilja att stanna i Afghanistan för evigt. Karl Rove kallade Obamas strategi ”isolationistisk” på Fox News igår. Dick Cheney tycker att den visar på hans ”svaghet” som ledare.

En mer nykter analys kommer från Marc Ambinder, som tror att Obamas strategi riskerar att förlora en hel del stöd från den vänsterliberala basen:

David Corn på Mother Jones påpekar i sin tur skillnader och likheter med Vietnam:

”During the speech, Obama firmly rejected the Vietnam analogy, noting that those who compare Afghanistan to that war are engaged in ”a false reading of history.” Obama rightfully noted that in Afghanistan ”we are not facing a broad-based popular insurgency” and that Americans were ”viciously attacked from Afghanistan.” But Obama skipped one part of the Vietnam debacle that perhaps offers a cautionary tale for today: the United States’ partner in Vietnam was also a government riddled with corruption and alienated from the public.”

David Bromwich skrev tidigare i höstas i London Review of Books om Obama och Afghanistan i sin eftertänksamma analys av Obamas första år:

”If Obama declined at last to oppose Netanyahu on the settlement freeze, he will be far more wary of opposing General Petraeus, the commander of Centcom. Obama is sufficiently humane and sufficiently undeceived to take no pleasure in sending soldiers to their deaths for a futile cause. He will have to convince himself that, in some way still to be defined, the mission is urgent after all. Afghanistan will become a necessary war even if we do not know what marks the necessity. Robert Dole, an elder of the Republican Party, has said he would like to see Petraeus as the Republican candidate in 2012. Better to keep him in the field (this must be at least one of Obama’s thoughts) than to have him to run against.”

Också: The Onion