“The killing of two American servicemen and the eruption of deadly anti-American protests in Afghanistan confronts President Obama with a potential political weakness in a foreign policy that has so far offered few easy targets to Republican candidates eager for an opening.
“But the White House and the Obama campaign believe that, if anything, the bloodshed in Afghanistan will reinforce the sentiments of a large majority of Americans who want to get the troops out of there as soon as possible. This, the president’s aides said, will constrain Mitt Romney or other Republicans seeking to benefit from a perception that Mr. Obama’s Afghan strategy has gone awry.”
It’s true that the President’s decision to apologize for the manifest stupidity of the American troops who burned Korans led Newt “I’m goin’ nowhere” Gingrich to howl “No apologies!”, but Mitt “My wife drives two Cadillacs” Romney, the original “No apologies!” dude, made no mention of Afghanistan or any other foreign country in his victory speech last night. I’m guessing (or maybe hoping) that Romney is as anxious to get out of Afghanistan as Obama is.
Afterwords
The neo-cons will surely force Romney to talk tough about Afghanistan from time to time, most likely in position papers that no one will ever read, and he surely will talk loudly about Iran, but I’m thinking (or, again, perhaps hoping) that everyone in the U.S., the U.S. Army included, is getting a little tired of the whole boots on the ground stuff. Sure, it sounds cool. But you get there, not so much. Let the drones do it! Yeah, man! Send in the drones!
