Obama Faces Criticism on Afghan Policy

A columnist, Michael Cohen, reviews President Obama's record on Afghanistan and finds it weak. He says that Obama began looking for a political settlement much too late, did not do a comprehensive review of the war until later in his presidency, ordered a surge of 30,000 troops with "a fuzzy set of objectives", and based the wars strategy on "assumptions about Afghanistan and Pakistan that turned out to be quite faulty". He concludes that Obama faces some criticism this fall as he prepares for the election when more attention focuses on Afghanistan. Read the rest of his article in "Kicking the Afghan Can", Foreign Policy, March 13, 2012.