With even the British complaining about President Obama’s inaction, there’s a more important question to ask. First, here’s what British Defense Secretary Bob Ainsworth is quoted as saying:

“We have suffered a lot of losses; we have had a period of hiatus while (General] McChrystal’s plan and his requested uplift has been looked at over a period of some months, and we have had the Afghan elections, which have been far from perfect, let us say, and all of those things have mitigated against our ability to show progress. And to put that on the other side of the scales when we are suffering the kind of losses we are.”

It’s one thing to gather information from your national security team. That’s expected before sending troops into harms’ way. It’s quite another thing to procrastinate like President Obama has done. It’s dangerous for any president to take this much time in deciding whether he’ll send additional troops into a war he said was the real war on terror.

Taking this much time to make a decision makes allies wonder if President Obama is committed to defeating al-Qa’ida and their Taliban cohorts. It makes allies wonder if the United States is a reliable ally. It certainly doesn’t instill confidence in the tribal regions that President Obama will fight until the terrorists are dead and defeated.

During the campaign, Hillary and Obama both talked about bringing the troops home from Iraq “in a responsible way.” I especially noted that they NEVER talked about winning in Iraq.

I’m betting that the British noticed that, too. I’m betting that they’re privately questioning whether President Obama is committed to winning or whether he’s committed to doing just enough to provide himself with political cover.

Mr. President, enough with the dithering. It’s time you told people that you’re committed to defeating the terrorists at all costs. Enough with talk about various exit strategies. They didn’t have an exit strategy for WWII. FDR and Congress certainly didn’t establish timetables for withdrawals from the Pacific.

Some right of center pundits have said it’s time to win or pull the troops out. I reject that thinking because defeat isn’t an option. Winning is the only option. That means aggressively seeking and finding Taliban/al-Qa’ida hideouts, then killing the terrorists and their support infrastructure.

Much ink has been spilled and much bandwidth consumed talking about how President Obama has restored America’s standing in the world. That’s rubbish. What country wants an unreliable, wavering ally like the United States has been during the Obama administration? What country can look at the Obama administration throwing traditional allies under the proverbial bus and think highly of this administration as an ally? What country can look at the Obama administration’s cozying up to Iran and other state sponsors of terrorism and think of this administration as having the right national security priorities?

I’ll be the first to say that President Obama’s vascillation points to a bigger problem, namely that he thinks it’s more important to make national security decisions based on political conditions than on the advice of his military commanders.

God help us all.

Technorati: Taliban, al-Qaeda, Afghanistan, Terrorism, Allies, Bob Ainsworth, British, President Obama, National Security, Hillary, Stan McChrystal, Military, Democrats

Cross-posted at California Conservative