The internal Obama administration fight over the Afghan war is going to produce a lot of interesting journalism. This Washington Post piece obviously represents the point of view of, roughly speaking, the Biden faction. The good news: We supposedly now have had success infiltrating al-Qaeda and we are launching more, and more surgical, strikes against the terror group, which has been significantly degraded. Funnily enough, all this apparently began to happen on January 21. You get a sense of how much ax-grinding might be going on in this piece from this passage:
The official acknowledged that such actions are far easier in Somalia, which has no functioning government, than in places such as Pakistan. “I don’t want to give the impression that they are ushering in U.S. operatives,” he said.
But he maintained that other governments and intelligence services “have been much more amenable to cooperating with Washington because of the new image that has been projected” by Obama. “I don’t want to criticize the previous administration, because they were equally motivated,” he said, “but cooperating too closely with Americans at that time tainted them.”
“If the United States is heavily engaged in certain activities, whether on the ground, air or sea, it requires cooperation with certain countries,” the official said. “Over the last nine months . . . the environment has been much more conducive to cooperation.”
All things being equal, it’s certainly better to be popular overseas, but are we to believe that, say, the Saudi secret service and the ISI are swayed one way or another by Obama’s popularity? That Obama’s strong approval numbers in Islamabad are making all the difference? Please.