A turning point in Afghanistan

Gen. David Petraeus took the helm of the war in Afghanistan this week, acknowledging that the conflict is at a “critical moment,” with military setbacks on the ground and political opposition growing at home. With June emerging as the deadliest month ever for allied forces, with 102 dead, Petraeus vowed to stay the course, declaring, “We’re in this to win.”

Petraeus assumed his new post after his predecessor, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, was fired for being quoted mocking President Obama and other top officials in a magazine article. The incident brought to the surface a bitter rift between military and civilian authorities that Petraeus must now try to ease. “This endeavor has to be a team effort,” he declared.

Petraeus may be the best man for this job, said Gian Gentile in The Christian Science Monitor, “but no one, no matter how brilliant, can achieve the impossible.” The fundamental problem in Afghanistan is that we are pursuing “a nation-building strategy with counterinsurgency tactics.” It’s now been more than eight years of fighting, with more than 1,000 Americans killed, and we’re no closer to any sort of victory.

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Yet there’s hope, said William Kristol in The Weekly Standard. With Petraeus reviewing the rules of engagement and Obama sounding increasingly hawkish, “Afghanistan can now be won.” The key, said James Phillips in National Review Online, is whether Obama will give up on his “politically motivated” July 2011 timetable for beginning a troop pullout. Petraeus turned around the war in Iraq, but he could not have done so with an arbitrary deadline looming.

The American people are running out of patience—and money, said Arnaud de Borchgrave in The Washington Times. Since this war began, the U.S. economy has collapsed, and hopes for a quick recovery are fading. Local governments are facing bankruptcy, yet we spend “more on defense than the rest of the world put together.” Sooner rather than later, Petraeus will have to show the public the “light at the end of the Afghan tunnel.”