How to Square the Circle

Richard Cohen says what I'm thinking about Afghanistan:

Already, Obama is paying a price for Afghanistan. In April, the public gavehim a
63 percent approval rating on Afghanistan; that's now down to 45 percent.Up to
now, the erosion of support for his Afghanistan policy has come fromRepublicans.
This is as God intended. But should the president truly escalatethe war, it is
his Democratic base that is going to yell bloody murder. In arecent Post-ABC
News poll, only about a third of Democrats favored sending anadditional 40,000
troops, with 61 percent opposed -- 51 percent of them stronglyso. The Nation
magazine, a reliable voice of the left, calls in its latest issuefor Obama to
"begin planning a responsible exit strategy." He is, in fact,continuing a
responsible entry strategy.

There is no doubt in my mind that Obama will move ahead on Afghanistan, with more troops and private contractors. He's no more going to begin to exit Afghanistan than he's going to get tough on his banker campaign contributors at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. He's just trying to find a way to do it that doesn't destroy him politically.