Afghan Cycle: How it works

[Mr Khan]

Kasz216 said:

Mr Khan said:

My read on this is that the public as a whole (including many who profess to be on the right) is weary enough of the war that they'll support a negotiated settlement as long as it doesn't look like we're leaving with our tail between our legs and/or the Taliban don't completely take over after we go (e.g. stick to the negotiated settlement). Only really hawkish voters are going to be mad, and their ranks (even on the right) have been shrunken by Iraq and Afghanistan.

I don't know, I mean you just admitted in the post above that you see it as something Obama could only make progress on in his second term.

I think the average person really won't understand why we made a settlement rather then just leave Karzai in power.

The difference is that much less noise will be made on the matter if the President isn't up for re-election. I mean, look at the stupid things Romney's saying about Russia now that that missile defense flap came out. This sort of thing is routine foreign policy that no-one would really care about, but the talking heads will make them care if they have a vested interest one way or another (i.e., let's boot this guy out of office).

Nobody blasted Bush's handling of the Georgia-Russia thing late in his term, and it didn't even really factor in on McCain, whereas the Left would have accused him of playing nice with Putin against the interests of the Georgian people or something if the same thing had happened in 2004.