He answered, “I’m always worried about using the word “victory” because, you know, it invokes this notion of Emperor Hirohito coming down and signing a surrender to MacArthur.” … Obama either doesn’t understand " or, worse " doesn’t take seriously McChrystal’s report when it says, “While not a war in the conventional sense, the conflict in Afghanistan demands a similar focus and an equal level of effort, and the consequences of failing are just as grave.” Obama is neither smarter nor more politically astute than his generals. He tried to snooker McChrystal by requiring the general to send three options for Afghanistan catalogued as “low”, “moderate” and “high” risk. That way, he thought, he could accept a lower number of troops to be sent and still say that he followed McChrystal’s advice. But the general " seeing through that (according to a senior House member who I spoke to last week) " beat the president at his own game. The “moderate risk plan . . .

. . McChrystal submitted is the number the general really wants, about 40,000 more troops. The “high” risk recommendation is anything substantially less than that and the “low” risk plan is for much more than the general thinks is needed (about 60,000 more troops). …

by Jed Babbin

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Mr. Babbin is the editor of Human Events and HumanEvents.com. He served as a deputy undersecretary of defense in President George H.W. Bush’s administration. He is the author of “In the Words of our Enemies“(Regnery,2007)