If It Doesn't Have Dates On It, It's Not A Timetable

By Steve Hynd

At The WaPo, Eugene Robinson points out something we all already knew but that folk like McCain and Petraeus would rather we forgot:

But wait a minute. Another way to describe a withdrawal deadline that is based not on the calendar but on an amorphous and elusive set of "conditions" would be to call it an open-ended commitment. This is precisely what Obama said he was not giving to Afghanistan's corrupt, feckless and increasingly unreliable government.

Keep that obvious truth in mind as the War Party try to spin their way to many more years in the quagmire.

In Washington, the hawkish interpretation of events is that the timeline itself is now the problem -- that, in the words of Sen. John McCain, it tells "the key actors inside and outside of Afghanistan that the United States is more interested in leaving than succeeding in this conflict."

This sounds like a reasonable argument until you think about it. Karzai, the Taliban, the warlords and the Afghan public already know that U.S. and NATO forces will leave someday. The only way to make them think otherwise would be to announce that we intend to stay forever -- and clearly that's not the case. From the Afghan point of view, it doesn't make much difference whether the interlopers depart in one year or in five.

...Whether or not Obama adheres to his announced deadline matters less to the Afghans than it does to us. U.S. casualties are increasing, as was anticipated; Obama has tripled U.S. troop levels since he took office; and the battle for Kandahar will be bloody. Our European allies are squirming, balking, complaining and looking for the exit. As time goes on, this will become even more of a primarily American war.

The question is how much more the war will cost in precious young lives and scarce resources. Obama won the nation's forbearance by making a promise that the inevitable withdrawal of U.S. troops would begin next year. Americans should expect him to keep his word -- and insist that he does.

Obama also apparently got a promise from Mullen, Petraeus and McChrystal that they would stick to that 2011 date too. Obama should insist that they keep that promise.