Since Sunday’s successful raid ending the era of Osama bin Laden I’ve been seeing more and more Democrats saying we need to end the war in Afghanistan. Jed Lewison ponders the differences between the approval bumps for George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and President Obama:
In 2002 and 2003, Bush used his popularity to start and then to prolong an ill-considered war in Iraq that eventually consumed his presidency, ignoring not just the threat posed by the people who actually attacked us on 9/11 but also the growing economic threats. In 2011, Obama will almost certainly use this event to end, not prolong the war in Afghanistan, and to refocus the country on the need to invest in our own future. That’s the way he talked about it in the 2008 campaign, and that’s what I expect he’ll do in 2011. And the extent to which he’s able to use this moment to achieve that goal will have a far bigger impact on his political future than the fleeting results the polls of today.
The time to start ending the war in Afghanistan is now. Afghanistan wants us gone. The American people want us to leave and some U.S. lawmakers are saying to end it. I can’t think of a better legacy of bin Laden’s death if we are able to declare victory and leave. It will indeed be another promise kept.