The Beginning of the End

Commentary By Ron Beasley

I am once again going to disagree with my partners here at Newshoggers.  I may not like General Petraeus but I do think he is a very smart man.  Smart enough to realize that Afghanistan is a no win war.  I believe his mission is to find a face saving exit from the graveyard of empires.  Unlike John's links below I think Thomas Ricks gets it right.

This week's confrontation between a senior Army general and the
president of the United States may have signaled the beginning of the
end of the war in Afghanistan. In a year or two, President Obama will be
able to say that he gave the conflict his best shot, reshaping the
strategy and even putting in charge his top guy, the general who led the
surge in Iraq -- but that things still didn't work out. 

Then he can begin pulling out.

Now I don't agree with much of anything else Ricks has to say but I think this is important:

Petraeus is much more like Obama than he was like Bush. The Dutch
American general and the African American commander in chief are oddly
similar. Both are the sons of immigrant fathers; both are intelligent
and ambitious; both are more cool, cerebral and distant than most of
their peers.

And they both know Afghanistan is a potential dead end for both of them.  Look for a face saving exit within a year.