>>Is Afghanistan going to be ZERO’s Vietnam?<<
The danger is that its going to be OUR next Vietnam. This is one of those situations where we can’t afford to have a President from the other party fail.
Unfortunately, the war-fighting record of Democrat presidents isn't terribly encouraging.
The problem is that it’s hard to see what we’re trying to accomplish there now. The renewed focus on Afghanistan has nothing to do with Afghanistan’s negligible strategic significance and much more to do with domestic U.S. politics.
Al-Qaeda no longer has a base in Afghanistan, and the Taliban is unlikely to regain control of the country even without our intervention. Even if they do, it will probably be of little consequence to us. Imposing any sort of stable order in Afghanistan is of little value to us strategically, and is probably impossible anyway.
Politically, however, Afghanistan is very important to Obama. It represents a foreign policy compromise that allowed him to be elected. He needed to oppose the Iraq war in order to win the Democrat nomination, but he could not appear weak against Islamic terrorists in general. That meant decrying our efforts in Iraq as a “distraction” from the “real war” in Afghanistan, and promising a renewed focus on defeating our enemies in the latter.
This is why we have no discernible objective in Afghanistan, and why this change in command will amount to little. Our original objectives were to overthrow the Taliban, deny an operational base to al Qaeda, and to kill or capture al Qaeda’s leadership. We’ve long since accomplished the first two. We’ve had mixed results on the third, and Afghanistan only continues in significance there as a base of operations to hunt al Qaeda down in Pakistan (where most of them are now) or pressure the Pakistanis themselves to do so.
Afghanistan will probably be our next Vietnam in one way: it’s unlikely that we’ll leave with anything that looks like victory. However, remember that our “defeat” in Vietnam was ultimately irrelevant to us strategically. So will our lack of obvious victory in Afghanistan. Fortunately, Afghanistan will come at a far lower cost.
I feel the need to quote Ann Coulter here on what happens when Democrat Presidents have their fingers in foreign policy and warefare.
In summary, defeat and humiliation. God, how I pray for our troops and our country. Don’t Forsake Them under the arrogant, amateur direction of those who will handcuff and meddle in the affairs of our military in their every move.