President Obama's Impossible Troop Straddle

How can Obama reconcile pulling troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq when the conventional wisdom argues for keeping them there indefinitely?

It was evident during his campaign that Barack Obama was going to be a fairly conventional figure when it came to U.S. foreign policy (despite the hysteria from some quarters). And so he has found himself in an uncomfortable straddle - professing a desire to bring troops home from Iraq and, in 2011, from Afghanistan in accordance with a sizable segment of popular opinion and the majority of his Democratic base. Yet the conventional wisdom of which his administration is firmly embedded views extended deployments in both countries as vital to securing American interests.

There's really only one way to square this circle, and that is to bring the costs of both missions down to where the U.S. presence is seen merely as stabilizing force, as it is in Korea. This really seems like what the administration is hoping will happen - that the U.S. will be able to transition its role while Iraq and Afghanistan emerge from their internal violence, while at the same time retaining a military toe-hold in each country to project power regionally.

The U.S. applied a similar strategy in the late 1940s as Western Europe and Asia were collectively attempting to pull themselves out of the ruins of World War. The only difference, of course, is that Western Europe and Asia were vital centers of industry and American commercial activity which fought wars against external, nation state aggressors. In Iraq and Afghanistan, neither of those conditions apply. We're going to be investing an awful lot of time and effort into nations and regions which, at the end of the day, just aren't that relevant.

(AP Photos)