President Obama leaving the Rose Garden after announcing that he had replaced Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal. His advisers were divided over how to handle the controversy over the general. Win Mcnamee/Getty ImagesObama's Afghan Strategy Remains Plagued By Problems -- McClatchy News
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama's decision to accept Gen. Stanley McChrystal's resignation and draft his superior, Gen. David Petraeus, to lead the war in Afghanistan eliminates a source of friction, but it doesn't address the problems plaguing U.S. policy there.
The change in command, Obama made clear Wednesday, is a change in personnel, not in a policy that's hampered by, among other things, the absence of a political strategy, rising U.S. casualties, growing ethnic tensions, endemic political corruption, the administration's July 2011 deadline for beginning a troop withdrawal and a stalled offensive in the country's second-largest city.
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My Comment: A surprisingly good and accurate assessment on present-day U.S. policy in Afghanistan. I agree with almost everything that is said in it .... but I would also focus on the complete failure of U.S. policy on the Afghan political level. The State Department has been notoriously absent in implementing any coherent policy in Afghanistan, and I still have trouble understanding what people like Amb. Eikenberry, or what special envoy Richard Holbrooke and Vice President Joe Biden are bringing to the table.
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