One of the psychological defenses our anti-war side uses to rationalize their advocacy of retreat is the comforting illusion that we are doomed to defeat. Urging retreat and defeat under those circumstances isn't cowardly or anti-American, but wise in minimizing losses in a losing effort.
I didn't know that half of it:
Perhaps the most disturbing thing about the last few years has been the stunningly large number of American thinkers, strategists and pundits who have been perfectly prepared to lose wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan. People talk about American decline these days, but it is not in the basic measurements of national power that American decline is to be found. It is in the willingness of the intellectual and foreign policy establishments to accept both decline and defeat.
There is a new doctrine out there that seems to enjoy enormous cache among the smart foreign policy set: fight wars until they get hard, then quit.
So if you want to understand why, in my gut, I did not want to leap to criticize the president's decision to reinforce our troops in Afghanistan, I think I understood that he may be virtually alone among his cadre of advisors brought into the White House from outside in thinking we can win this war:
The Obama administration’s ranks are filled with people, fresh from the academy and the think tanks, who talk about the need to manage American decline, and even boast about how much more sophisticated they are than the Bush people on this score. They do say all this off the record, however. Perhaps they know that many Americans would not applaud them for their sophistication. Let’s hope the man in the Oval Office knows it, too.
So I'm willing to cut the president some slack and let him fight the war in Afghanistan. He likely has few enough allies inside the White House. Those outside who believe there is no alternative to victory must support him and prod him to make more decisions that push victory rather than calibrate the precise point we can exit the war in defeat.
Win this war, Mr. President, despite what your big-brained, sophisticated aides tell you. Let our enemies work for our decline.
