Wednesday night, former Vice President Dick Cheney took President Obama to the proverbial woodshed for his procrastination in making a decision on Afghanistan troop levels. It wasn’t pretty:

Having announced his Afghanistan strategy last March, President Obama now seems afraid to make a decision, and unable to provide his commander on the ground with the troops he needs to complete his mission.

President Obama has said he understands the stakes for America. When he announced his new strategy he couched the need to succeed in the starkest possible terms, saying, quote, “If the Afghan government falls to the Taliban, or allows al-Qaeda to go unchallenged, that country will again be a base for terrorists who want to kill as many of our people as they possibly can.” End quote.

When President Obama announced his Afghanistan policy, foreign policy experts knew that the Karzai government was corrupt. The only thing that’s changed since then is that they have more proof of it now. When President Obama announced his Afghanistan policy, foreign policy experts knew that having the Afghani government fail would mean that the terrorists would return to their old training camp. That hasn’t changed, either.

Most importantly, the goal hasn’t changed. It’s still imperative that the terrorists not get their training camps back. Whether there’s a corrupt government there or not, it’s imperative that the terrorists not have a sanctuary to train for new terrorist attacks.

Next, former Vice President Cheney questions President Obama’s willingness to make difficult decisions:

It’s time for President Obama to make good on his promise. The White House must stop dithering while America’s armed forces are in danger. Make no mistake, signals of indecision out of Washington hurt our allies and embolden our adversaries. Waffling, while our troops on the ground face an emboldened enemy, endangers them and hurts our cause.

President Obama’s procrastination is causing America’s allies whether it’s safe to partner with us because they don’t know whether they’ll get thrown under the now-infamous Obama bus. They’re all too aware of the fact that President Obama’s promises come with an expiration date. If nations don’t have a trustworthy partner, then there’s no upside to partnering with them.

While President Obama can boast about the Nobel Peace Prize, it’s largely irrelevant if other nations don’t trust us. Thus far, President Obama has alienated Eastern European allies like Poland and the Czech Republic and traditional allies like Great Britain. Now it looks like he’s starting work on alienating southwestern Asia.

Here, though, is the most blistering indictment against the Obama administration:

Recently, President Obama’s advisors have decided that it’s easier to blame the Bush Administration than support our troops. This weekend they leveled a charge that cannot go unanswered. The President’s chief of staff claimed that the Bush Administration hadn’t asked any tough questions about Afghanistan, and he complained that the Obama Administration had to start from scratch to put together a strategy.

In the fall of 2008, fully aware of the need to meet new challenges being posed by the Taliban, we dug into every aspect of Afghanistan policy, assembling a team that traveled to Pakistan and Afghanistan, reviewing options and recommendations, and briefing President-elect Obama’s team. They asked us not to announce our findings publicly, and we agreed, giving them the benefit of our work and the benefit of the doubt. The new strategy they embraced in March, with a focus on counterinsurgency and an increase in the numbers of troops, bears a striking resemblance to the strategy we passed to them. They made a decision, a good one, I think, and sent a commander into the field to implement it.

Now they seem to be pulling back and blaming others for their failure to implement the strategy they embraced. It’s time for President Obama to do what it takes to win a war he has repeatedly and rightly called a war of necessity.

That’s the polite way of saying that the Obama administration’s charges that the Bush administration did nothing are a gold-plated lie. Dick Cheney lays out in specificity that the Bush administration conducted a thorough foreign policy review of Afghanistan, laid out a plan that would “focus on counterinsurgency” and that gave NATO troops the best chance of defeating the Taliban once and for all.

It isn’t the Bush administration’s fault that President Obama refuses to make a difficult, important decision because he’s afraid of the political consequences. If there’s another terrorist attack that originated from Afghanistan, historians won’t put an asterisk after President Obama’s name, saying that it isn’t really his fault, that he had other political considerations he was dealing with.

This is where a leader makes a decision. More importantly, this is where the military needs its CINC to point them in the direction of victory. BTW, victory is easily defined, contrary to what experts of nuance like John Kerry and Richard Holbrooke might say. Victory is defined by killing terrorists and their support system, giving the people of Afghanistan the ability to stabilize their government.

Right now, military officers like Gen. Stanly McChrystal are urging immediate action because they consider the situation critical. I’d offer President Obama this advice: when the foremost expert tells me what’s needed for victory, and after you’ve stated numerous times that victory is imperative, then it’s time to decide on winning in Afghanistan, whatever the political consequences might be.

Regardless of the Left’s reaction, this must be done. It’s impossible to win re-election after losing a war and presiding over a failing economy. It’s just that simple when you think things through.

Technorati: Military, National Security, Terrorism, Taliban, al-Qaeda, Sanctuary, President Obama, John Kerry, Democrats, Dick Cheney, Republicans, Stanley McChrystal

Cross-posted at California Conservative