The Bush administration made a decision back in 2002 not to over-invest in Afghanistan, to settle for very limited goals and to focus instead on Iraq. Candidate Obama fiercely opposed the Iraq war and called instead for a big new recommitment to Afghanistan.Once elected president, Obama hesitated for months as he pondered whether to fulfill his pledges on Afghanistan. That delay suggests to me that the original commitment had been made for campaign purposes, and did not reflect a serious analysis of the costs and benefits of a big Afghan counterinsurgency.
Whatever Obamaâ??s motives, the results of his long-pondered policy have been disappointing to everybody â?? and a sharp reminder of the reasons that president Bush opted against nation-building in Afghanistan. - David Frum, June 2010
President Bush today embraced a major American role in rebuilding Afghanistan, calling for a plan he compared to the one Gen. George C. Marshall devised for Europe after World War II, and vowed to keep the United States engaged in Afghanistan "until the mission is done."
Speaking before cadets at the Virginia Military Institute, Mr. Bush warned that military force alone could not bring "true peace" to Afghanistan, and that stability would come only after the war-ravaged country reconstructed its roads, health care system, schools and businesses â?? just as Europe and Japan did after 1945. - James Dao, New York Times, April 2002.
